They were all now in prison. In the times when they were allowed to gather, they debated the country’s future path now that the resistance cells were rounded up and the colonial authorities were once again enjoying a period of relative quiet, no longer clashing with people saying ‘No!’ The prisoners surveyed the disaster with total gloom. The vengeance wreaked by the French upon the nationalists would be as brutal as such revenge demanded.
Ali’s conscience plagued him. ‘We’re going to be responsible for the extra suffering for our countrymen. We’ve fallen into the trap without even thinking about it. Why did we embark on such a risky venture without being sure we would come out on top?’ His colleagues listened carefully to him, the head of their cell.
Until this point, Abd al-Aziz had been willing to compromise with these young men; after all, this was their first experience of prison. But now he had had enough. ‘You all need to do your duty, like everyone else,’ he told them bluntly. ‘None of us is responsible for the outcome. We’re a mere drop in the ocean; it needs us for it to be filled, and yet we’re not responsible for filling it.’
While he was speaking, Abd al-Rahman watched him closely. He wanted to make sure his friend could manage to relieve his colleagues of their crisis of conscience. To alleviate the impact of Abd al-Aziz’s straightforward remarks, Abd al-Rahman told them, ‘Although you’ve been put in prison, you’re still involved in the struggle. The spirit you’ve evoked still courses through cities and villages, plains, valleys and mountains.’
‘Even though we haven’t completed our task?’ asked Abd al-Rauf, a young member of the cell.
‘But you have completed your task,’ Abd al-Rahman responded calmly. ‘I completed mine too, before you. Now the situation has to develop so that people more capable than us can carry the banner forwards and confront the situation as it is.’
‘Couldn’t we have done that?’ Ali asked angrily.
‘Of course you could,’ Abd al-Rahman replied, ‘but the situation has to keep developing. Our arrest will impel other people to take up the standard. They wouldn’t do that if we hadn’t been imprisoned first.’
‘We’re more capable than others,’ Abd al-Rauf said impatiently. ‘If we were still there, we would be moving things forwards.’
Abd al-Aziz gave Abd al-Rahman a pleading look as though asking him to intervene, but he remained silent because he was convinced that Abd al-Aziz could rescue the situation. Eventually he said, ‘If only they had let us be, if only we had stayed where we were… if only we hadn’t… But that’s all over, finished. We can’t bring back the past for the simple reason that we’re now part of that past. There’s no point chasing after something that we can no longer accomplish.’
The young men’s jaws dropped, as though they were hearing a bitter truth for the first time.
‘Can we somehow resist our imprisonment?’ Abd al-Aziz continued. ‘Can we escape from the cages that cramp our will and prevent our spirits aspiring to attract other nationalist spirits to us? Can we achieve genuine revolution from behind closed prison gates and in spite of all the guards and weapons? As we proceed from past to future, from oblivion to existence, and from nothingness to presence, this is what we must bear in mind.’ These words stirred the young men to thoughts of revolt, while at the same time lodging in their young minds the powerful concepts of ‘nothingness’, ‘oblivion’, all the way to infinity.
Ali wanted to erase the ideas that plagued him. ‘True enough!’ he said enthusiastically, as though to wipe away the traces of ‘oblivion’ and ‘nothingness’. ‘Why are we still stuck in these prison cells waiting to be sentenced, as though we’re not due to appear before the military tribunal? Let’s get out of here!’
The words ‘get out’ had a galvanising effect, but Abd al-Rahman, who knew the prison well and could predict how the guards would behave, realised that the whole idea was reckless and dangerous. But since he had no desire to douse young minds longing for freedom, he did not respond to what Ali had said, instead trying to turn the conversation to something more hopeful. ‘Prison is certainly a crisis for all of us,’ he said, ‘but then it’s over. You’ll learn from experience that, however long the prison term turns out to be, each little bird will eventually be set free.’
Abd al-Aziz gave Abd al-Rahman a dubious look. Ignoring him, Abd al-Rahman was happy to see the positive effect his words had had on the young men.
‘Once we’re free again,’ Abd al-Rauf commented, ‘we’ll go back to work and liberate our country.’
Abd al-Aziz clapped. ‘Bravo, now I’m happy!’ he said. ‘Your country deserves you!’
The young men were wrenched from their conversation by the gruff voice of one of the guards, who entered the cell following the sound of the door bolt being pulled back. ‘On your feet!’
Everyone stood up, removing their head-caps as they did so.
‘Abd al-Aziz ibn Ahmad,’ the same voice read out from official documents, ‘Ali ibn al-Tahir, Abd al-Rauf ibn Abd al-Wahid, and Salim ibn Muhammad, your date to appear before the tribunal of the French Armed Forces is scheduled for 4 p.m. next Monday.’
The guard turned around and left, fate having spoken through his tongue. The bolt was thrust back into place, and the sound echoed inside their hearts as ‘Imprisonment!’ and ‘Tribunal!’
The young men stood before the French military tribunal. They were confident, courageous, and bold; their expressions were defiant and committed; they felt relaxed and content. They knew what their path was to be, and had followed it to its conclusion. They also realised what their fate would be and did not flinch. Their defiance was clear as they stood, one after the other, before a white-haired judge with a determined and resolute look in his eyes. To his right and left sat a group of young officers representing the authorities, there to ensure that the ruling handed down by the white head and intelligent eyes was the right one.
The tribunal issued its verdict: death by firing squad for all the members of the terrorist gangs who had posed such a threat to the internal and external security of the state.
Everyone listened with a heavy heart as the judge pronounced the verdict. Women seated behind the accused burst into tears; each one of them had a brother or son among the condemned men, who themselves turned pale as they heard the verdict, though their inner faith could be seen in their eyes: there was no sorrow, and no tears.
The same courage loosened Abd al-Aziz’s tongue as the court was about to end its session. ‘Long live Morocco!’ he shouted from the depths of his soul.
‘Long live Morocco!’ the young men repeated, as guards tied their hands behind their backs. ‘Long live independence!’
Abd al-Rahman was waiting tensely for his companions to come back, to hear what was to be their fate. With every delay, his fears intensified. He was well aware of the circumstances in which they had been arrested and how serious were the charges against them, so he kept his hand on his heart, waiting to hear what he already knew but his heart did not dare to admit.
The halls and blocks of the prison were all quiet; lights in the stores and cells had been put out – but this was the calm before the storm. The prison gates were abruptly opened, and the sound of bolts being pulled back mingled with the click of weapons as the guards put their rifles to their shoulders.
‘Open up Cell 13!’ came the call.
The hearts of the imprisoned nationalists leapt when they heard this. Abject misery led Abd al-Rahman to chew on his hand, and without warning his tears began to flow. He put his ear close to the cell door to hear more. Steady, powerful steps could be heard, interspersed with the sound of chains, as though to create a particular rhythm. He heard Abd al-Aziz cry, ‘Guardians of the homeland!’ followed by Ali shouting, ‘Long live Morocco, long live independence!’
The footsteps receded, and the voices disappeared behind the huge door of Cell 13. Now a world of darkness, isolation, and chains kept the young men apart from their nationalist colleagues, and from any world at all apart from that of execution, death, and oblivion. Abd al-Aziz resorted to the Qur’an and recitation of its verses, while the other young men turned to prayer, prostrating themselves as they called ‘God is great!’ and then standing up again as they repeated the same phrase in their hearts, all this in the quiet of the pitch-black night – though, for them, day and night were the same. The words ‘God is great’ opened the gates of the future to them, and their hearts aspired to it with both confidence and humility. Their spirits were suffused with the kind of faith they had never experienced before, and they stopped thinking about past, present, or future, in favour of contemplating one thing: God. They went about their functions in life as best they could. Their existence was no longer connected to a dimension in which the yardsticks for beneficence and misdeeds, good and evil, had been established.
In the same pitch-black quiet, Ali stood praying in the dark. Hearing a keening deep inside himself, he realised he was weeping.
The next morning, Abd al-Aziz took him to a far corner of the cell. ‘Why were you crying?’ he asked. ‘Hasn’t God promised you paradise?’
‘I wasn’t crying for my bride, nor for the embryo bumping inside her womb, nor for my father and brothers. I was crying for our country and its freedom.’
This brought Abd al-Aziz himself to tears. ‘Our blood will water the tree of freedom in our country,’ he said, looking humbly at Ali’s face. ‘I can foretell that it will sprout leaves and spread its fragrance all over our homeland.’
‘So, our blood won’t have been spilt in vain!’ Ali replied gratefully. ‘Speed your way here, death! My life’s task is at an end.’
On the eve of the Eid festival the young men were allowed to receive a visit from their families. At dawn on the festival day itself the prisoners were snoring through pleasant dreams: the festival day would dawn, and its beloved sun full of sweet hopes would shine on them all. Their families would knock on the prison gates to bring Eid greetings to a beloved husband, a devoted son, a loving father, or a dear brother. There would be festival gifts brought by mothers, fathers, or wives, each one pulsing with love and conveying smiling hopes. But these dreams were interrupted by agonised shouts from Cell 13, which jolted all the other prisoners and internees awake. They listened as voices came from afar through windows or cracks in doorways. Then the voices suddenly became powerful, clear, and strident: ‘Dear friends, we’ll meet in paradise. Farewell, and long live Morocco! It is time to part. Hear the glad tidings, beloved friends. The country will be independent!’
An anthem rang out as the regular stamp of military boots was heard: ‘Guardians of the homeland, O guardians of the homeland!’
As Abd al-Rahman listened to the sounds outside his cell door, his heart ached. He easily picked out one dear voice from the many.
‘Till we meet in paradise, Abd al-Rahman!’ called Abd al-Aziz. ‘Be glad. Our country will be free!’
Abd al-Rahman’s eyes flooded with tears of agony. He held his breath and buried his teeth in his fingertips to conquer the pain he felt. The voice began to recede, and Abd al-Rahman was afraid he would not be able to bid farewell to the dear friend whose self-sacrifice and devotion had so inspired him.
‘Farewell, dear Abd al-Aziz!’ he shouted. ‘Till we meet in paradise!’
Then his brave demeanour failed him, and he surrendered to tears as he heard the prison gates slam shut once again, a final farewell to the young men who had fulfilled God’s destiny.
The quietude of death now enveloped the prison, with images of the young men imprinted on the thoughts of thousands of prisoners and internees.
On the morning of Eid, the city of Fez resounded to the echoes of volleys aimed at the hearts of its young men.