Illusions

She threw herself out the window; it was not very high off the ground. He heard her running away, crying. Poking his head out the window, he watched angrily as she disappeared into the frigid darkness. In two minutes or less, she would be going home and telling her mother everything. After bolting the door, he started pacing nervously around the room, thinking hard. The little boy had cried, and his sister, who was two years older than him, had tried to shut him up. They both looked like mechanical dolls.

He had stared at her and watched as she tore at her hair. “I’m so miserable, so utterly miserable!” she wailed as she headed straight for the window to throw herself out.

“Give me a cup of tea,” he said to al-Hajj.

The chair creaked under him as if it were going to break at any moment. He flipped through the newspaper till he reached the culture page and began reading a poem written by one of his friends. All his friends had become poets except him. He had claimed to have larger ambitions. He was in no hurry to test his talents now; in ten years, perhaps, when his writing would be more mature than what his friends were producing now.

“Where do you get all these newspapers from, Si Abdelkrim?” the Hajj asked. “If I’d opened a bookstore here,” he went on with a laugh, “I could have been rich years ago.”

“Who would you sell the books to?”

“Just you.”

Abdelkrim began sipping his hot tea. He was tracing the lines of the poems, half-line by half-line.

Like you, I have never seen one before. You are far more beautiful than the Paris commune. Oh, sorry, I mean, you are far more ridiculous than the revolution of Bouhmara.

The dirt square was full of dung and manure, with skinny chickens pecking at the ground.

Martine walked by carrying her tote bag, and greeted him with a smile. His response lacked enthusiasm.

“Don’t you have class now?” she asked him.

“No, I’m off this afternoon.”

“Come by tonight. André’s brought some good wine. I’ll prepare a paella. Do you like it?”

“I’ll try to make it. I love paella.”

Martine left.

“Thanks to high school education,” said al-Hajj, “we now get to see people like her. Not long ago we only saw foreigners walking by here. If we had Arabized the education system, we’d never see such beautiful women.”

“Go to Casablanca, and you’ll get your fill.”

“Oh, Casablanca! It’s a dream, Si Abdelkrim. But they say there are a lot of gangs. Girls even rape men. What did that foreign woman say to you?”

“None of your business!”

“You’re right, Si Abdelkrim.”

He began to distract himself by staring at the chickens as they strutted around pecking at the dung and manure. There were only a few shops scattered around the square. Behind them was a poor neighborhood teeming with small children, and beyond that, clusters of huts where hired laborers and field workers lived. Those huts were so crowded that the owners had no choice but to throw people out.

Abdelkrim picked up the newspaper again and started flipping through the pages, but without any real interest. Raising his head, he watched a villager beating his donkey with a cane, but to no avail; the donkey did not respond, and refused to move.

At this time of day, if Abdelkrim is not teaching at the secondary school, he likes to sit and chitchat with al-Hajj or else read. Whatever the case, it’s certainly better than sleeping, which is all some of his friends ever do. What can you do in a small village a hundred and twenty kilometers from the nearest town? One of his colleagues has chosen to drink, while others have decided to chase their female students. But he reads and sleeps with Martine whenever he has the chance or André is away. Even so, André is very fond of him. Every time they have a drink together, they discuss the events of ‘68 and remember how André managed to destroy so many street signs and Martine set fire to a big perfume store.

“Those good old days! Do you remember, Martine, when we vented all that anger? Those were happy days, indeed.”

“How wonderful it was,” Abdelkrim said, “to be able to vent so much pent up anger! Do you realize, André, that anger isn’t a psychological state of mind; it’s something we inherit from history? It’s the summation of an entire past.”

“That’s true! And we managed to vent a portion of it.”

Abdelkrim watched as the villager tightened his belt, then bent down and picked up his cane. He was about to hit the donkey again, but it raised its ears and started moving forward. The owner had to chase it. Abdelkrim stopped watching the man, put his fingers in his cup of tea, picked out the mint leaves, and began sucking them. They tasted delicious.

Sometimes he feels he has to do that; it’s a habit that takes him back to his childhood. When his mother used to tell him to clean the teapot, he would make himself scarce and suck the mint leaves. How deliciously sweet the mint tasted! Even after he got married, he still kept up the habit; sometimes he just felt compelled to do it.

“You aren’t a child any more,” his wife would tell him. “Go and buy a pacifier, and we can dip it in honey or jam for you!”

He would pay no attention, and simply carried on sucking the leaves and spitting them on to the tray. Actually, he may have deliberately annoyed her because she kept on doing her utmost to prevent him enjoying this simple pleasure—the very essence of human happiness. As far as he was concerned, things that seemed so utterly trivial to some people were actually very important for the person involved. He made it a habit to show respect for the simplest and most banal human behavior. In fact, that trait may have been the thin line that separated the two of them, because she did not share his attitude.

Her image remained with him. She had thrown herself out the window, then disappeared from view. Actually, she had not only disappeared from view, but also from his imagination. The two children appeared, jumping up and down and calling out to him in unison. He told himself that he could be just as cruel as he was kind and tried as best he could to resolve the clash inside his head. At least once in a man’s life he should definitely show some courage by making a specific decision, however stupid it might seem. He put his cup down on the table, stood up, and walked over to al-Hajj and paid him.

“You’re leaving already, Si Abdelkrim?” al-Hajj asked as he retuned the radio. “Are you going to see that foreign girl?”

“Does it matter to you? I’ll give you a call when I’m in bed with her.”

“Oh my-my!!” said al-Hajj tapping his chest. “How magnanimous you are! I’ve never been wrong about you! I’ll leave you with her and call the neighbors. They’ll see how a dirty old man like you manages to seduce a really beautiful woman.”

“In that case they’ll make me a statue. The Caid will respect me even more and do his best to help me win the coming election. I’ll become a big feudal lord.”

“Will you forget me?”

“How can I possibly forget my agent?”

They both laughed, and their hands met in a strong grip. A joyful tear rolled from al-Hajj’s eye. As Abdelkrim left the café, he felt as though he were inhabiting some vast imaginary space with no houses, trees, roads, farmers, or army bases, just vast spaces. But the idea disturbed him; it felt terrifying. He could not live in such a space; it would make anyone feel tense and miserable. At a certain age he had been able to put up with many similar things, but he could not do it any more. Now the simplest things would annoy him. He could no longer tolerate anything, even if it stopped him sucking mint leaves.

“It’s not so easy to get rid of these two children, is it?” he had asked. “They’re so innocent.”

“I know.”

“I beg you to stay, if only for their sake.”

“If only you were willing to make the smallest gesture in that direction!”

“I’ve done a lot.”

“You haven’t done a single thing. We have to separate.”

“Why can’t you put up with a few difficulties like anybody else?”

“I can’t do it any more. At a certain point in the past, I might have done it, but not now.”

By this time the village was empty. All that remained was the sun and a panting dog with its tongue dangling. Without even thinking, Abdelkrim headed for a door with faded green paint. After knocking, he looked behind him and watched students who were playing with a ball. (Maybe their teacher was away.) He knocked again. A scruffy little girl opened the door and peered through the gap between the wall and the door.

“Tell your father I want a bottle of any kind.”

“Impossible. The gendarmes came by yesterday. They confiscated all the wine on orders from the Caid. Lucky they didn’t take all of us away to jail!”

“Just tell him Si Abdelkrim wants some. I’m sure they didn’t check the well. You know that perfectly well. Now don’t tell lies, you little bitch!”

“They even checked the well.”

“You liar. They don’t even know you have a well in the house.”

The girl closed the door in Abdelkrim’s face. When she took a while coming back, he knocked again but to no avail. She did not open it again. He moved away, cursing her aloud. At this point he remembered some of his friends who regularly drank or chased their female students. In this small village the only regular recreation involved drinking and adultery. He picked up a few stones and began tossing them, but then it occurred to him that that was not the proper way for a teacher to behave. If anyone happened to see him, they would think he had lost his mind. He lowered his arm, and the last stone fell quietly to the ground. Even if the well was really dry or the gendarmes had actually checked it, there was still André and Martine. He smiled to himself. Even when times were bad, he could always find a way out.

“What I like about you is your resolve and perseverance.”

“I’m not like that at all. I simply know what I’m doing.”

“That’s why I don’t want us to separate. Let’s make an effort to make our children happy.”

“You should have thought of that before. It’s too late now.”

“What I like about you is your stubbornness,” Martine said later in the evening.

“Either the well’s dry, or else the gendarmes decided to search it.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“It’s not important.”

“Have a drink. You seem to need one. Are you thinking about your wife and children?”

“The same way you’re thinking about André.”

“It’s not the same. For me, André knows everything.”

Abdelkrim lay on his back. Martine came closer and started playing with his hair. At first he enjoyed it, but eventually he moved his head away. She stood up, went into the kitchen, and came back with two slices of meat. She started drinking one glass of wine after another. Now Abdelkrim could feel that he was not alone in this world; he could know a number of people and be convinced that they all loved him a lot. Even if that was an illusion, he was content with it. Besides, how can we distinguish between illusion and reality? He wanted to tell Martine that, but decided not to.

They heard the doorbell ring. Whoever it was, it couldn’t be André.

(“Forget about the illusions. We can overlook what is past and live again for our children.”

“I never cling to illusions, but sometimes I can’t distinguish between them and reality.”

“That’s your problem.”

“I don’t believe it’s just my problem; it’s everybody’s. You’ll figure that out as well, if you think about it carefully.”)

Abdelkrim heard loud voices at the door; one of them he recognized as Martine’s. They seemed to be getting closer, with Martine’s being the sharpest. At this point the gendarme officer appeared.

“Unbelievable,” Martine kept saying.

“Come on,” the officer told Abdelkrim. “Get up and bring the bottle with you. You’re charged with drinking and adultery.”

“Unbelievable, Abdelkrim!” Martine kept yelling. “This gendarme wants me for himself; he’s tried a number of times. I’ve never seen anything like it. Unbelievable, unbelievable! What a strange country!”