The Street-Sweeper

There he was, sitting on the curb, his back leaning against the low wall from which branches hung down, laden with flowers and still-unopened blossoms. He’d left the trash-cart in a space between two cars. The broom was still swaying in the breeze; it was long and weighed very little, since it was probably made out of reeds.

He lit a cigarette, coughing all the while. Did he have pneumonia or just the flu? No one knew. When it came to old age, or let’s say any age—middle-age, youth, or childhood—everything was possible. It didn’t matter whether he smoked or not; he was coughing continuously. One of his daughters had offered to take him to the doctor, but he’d refused; he’d never been to a doctor before. He was just coughing, that was all. Perfectly normal; everybody coughs. It certainly wasn’t anything to be bashful about; in fact, there might not be anything seriously wrong. At his age everyone coughed.

True enough, some people can die of it. He had had a friend who used to smoke kif, then one day he’d simply gone on coughing and coughing till he dropped dead right beside him. He probably didn’t die of coughing, but something else: loneliness, perhaps. After all, he’d spent ten years living on his own in an isolated room. His children had moved away when they got married; they’d bought cars, become rich, and purchased apartments in other neighborhoods. Coughing probably won’t kill you, and yet his friend had coughed and coughed till he passed away. He himself had watched it happen. He’d propped his friend up on a pile of dirt till some other people arrived. They’d all gathered round, chatting and sympathizing. Some of them had been coughing, as well. They’d taken him away and buried him.

Even though a breeze was blowing, it was still very hot. Birds were chirping in the branches that dangled over his head. A butterfly fluttered by in front of him, landed on the broom, then flew away; perhaps it didn’t like the foul stench. He was still smoking and coughing. Stretching out his legs on the curb, he stared at one of his toes poking out of a hole in his shoe. Wearing a torn shoe didn’t bother him. Even as a child he had usually walked barefoot, but one of his daughters had made him wear new shoes and occasionally a clean suit. None of that bothered him, but he really wanted to go to the local bath-house. After all, he’d now done the things he really cared about. He’d spent most of his life in a shack, but now he’d put up a two-story building. His daughters were grown up: one worked at the Social Security Office, and the others were in London. Some people suggested they were doing something bad. God alone knows—people talk too much. Every raisin comes with a stick in its butt. At any rate, they sent him money every month. He’d be able to put up another building for them to settle down in, once they decided to come back home. Home, sweet home! What you need to do in your homeland is build things—construct apartments, found companies, and make chicken coops. He may be just a street-sweeper, but street-sweepers collect everything. He was thinking about his daughters; he loved the broom just as much as them.

His daughters had tried to persuade him to get another job, but he’d refused. He was used to drinking the cup of tea that a woman would give him, or chewing the piece of dry bread handed him by a child. As far as he was concerned, that was a delicious meal, matched only by evening soup and the cup of coffee before bedtime. At times it was hard for him to eat his soup, because the old lady talked a lot and kept thinking about their daughters in London. She kept saying how much she missed them, living in a foreign country. They were like two complete strangers, people with no parents. He would respond by reminding her that they kept sending money every month. She should thank God they were old enough and knew what they were doing. Be quiet, woman, he’d tell her. And with that he’d go back to sipping the soup, then finish his coffee and go to bed.

Their mother used to talk to other people about the kind of work Moroccan girls do in England, France, or Italy. Many families have daughters in Europe, and sometimes in other countries they know nothing about. What really counts is that his job involved sweeping the ground, whereas they were sweeping pockets with the sweat of their brow. God Almighty, to whom be ascribed all perfection and majesty, knows how to distribute subsistence to His servants. For example, just consider the cases of the sweeper, the gardener, and the cabinet member.

“What if I were a cabinet member?” he wondered, then went on: “Why doesn’t one of my daughters marry a cabinet member?”

He knew a girl in the neighborhood who’d married an important man. She’d been lucky because she wasn’t anything like as beautiful as his daughters who were now working in England. Maybe she’d been lucky because her father wasn’t a street-sweeper. He’d passed away a long time ago, leaving her mother to make alcohol, sell toothpicks, and dye her hair. Important people certainly admired mothers like her. But the more talkative ones, the kind that made soup and coffee for him in the evening, could even drive the very Devil himself away if he were to come and ask for the hand of one of her daughters.

In any case, the butterfly flew away, then came back. By now the wind had died down, and the broom was no longer swaying. After he’d smoked a couple of cigarettes, he glanced toward the end of the alley. He still had quite a distance left to sweep, fill his cart with garbage, and then empty it into the disposal bin. By now, the worker whose job was burning the garbage would have left; he usually quit work early because his boss did too. No matter; they could burn the garbage any time. But before that happened, whole armies of insects, of which he could only recognize flies, would have made a beeline for it.

There are other small insects that can sting and leave red marks in the skin; that’s why they should really burn the trash immediately. Those particular insects are black, and look nothing like the butterfly that was landing, then flying away; landing, then flying. It was apparently disgusted by the stench of both the broom and the cart, so it landed instead on the roses and flower blossoms. Praise the Lord!

Some creatures like living in the trash, while others prefer roses and flower-blossoms. In creation there are both dirty black insects and beautiful butterflies; some live in the daylight, others prefer the dark. Humans are just like insects; some live like bats, others live like flies and butterflies.

He stood up and started pushing his cart along the alley.

“Hey, you!” a little girl called out to him.

He turned round wearily. She was carrying a tray with a pot of tea and some bread. He took a look at some of the trash piled in front of him, but left the cart where it was. He sat down on the curb near the spot where the girl had put down the tray in the sun. She went away, chatting to two other girls. Leaning against the wall and stretching his legs out wearily, he poured himself some tea.

At that moment, he remembered that his daughter who worked at the Social Security Office had asked him if he needed anything. “You embarrass us,” she said. “The neighbors keep calling us the street-sweeper’s daughters.”

He also remembered how he had responded. “It’s this broom that’s turned you into real women. You used to sleep in a barn, but now you can sleep in a proper building.”

“You have to stop sweeping.”

“I’ll retire in a year, then you can marry whomever you want, someone who’s prepared to accept a street-sweeper as a father-in-law. Who knows? His father might even be a street-sweeper too.”

“I don’t meet street-sweeper’s sons.”

“How can you say that to my face without feeling ashamed?”

He took a sip of tea, lit a cigarette, and tried to forget everything. The little girl was still chatting with her friends. She moved away a little. One of them tried to stretch up and pick a rose on the wall, but in spite of several attempts, she couldn’t reach it.

Just then the wind blew down a wilting red rose. The little girl was thrilled. She picked it up, smelled its scent, and held it under the other girls’ noses. He finished his cigarette and the whole pot of tea. He called over to the girl, but she didn’t hear him. He called again; this time she heard, but kept chatting with her friends. Maybe they were talking about what might happen to them in the future or what had happened at home yesterday. Standing up again, he grabbed the cart’s handles and looked to the end of the alley. Many piles of trash were still waiting for him, but no matter; he had been doing it for a long time and was quite used to it. One of his daughters had told him that street-sweepers in London were well paid. In any case he was fine. Sweeping streets in Casablanca was better than sweeping London streets. God would reward you for sweeping Muslim streets and collecting their trash; it was better than collecting Christian garbage, even though some Christian trash was definitely better than that of Muslims. They could intercede with the authorities, get passports, and take some Moroccan girls back with them.

May God bless them! If it weren’t for those Christians, we would not have been able to build even a wall, and his two daughters would not have gone to London. . . . Some of them are good, others bad. They aren’t all the same; in fact, sometimes they can be better than the Muslims in Rabat. Yet Christians are still Christians, and Muslims are Muslims. God created them all and knows what’s in their hearts. He knows who’s a believer and who’s a non-believer. Atheists are all one and the same.

The trash was still piled up at the end of the alley. He would listen to the usual chatter, eat the soup, drink coffee, and contemplate the walls which he had built with the sweat of his brow or armpits, or something else going on in London. He was still pushing his cart when a service vehicle passed by.

“Haven’t you finished this alley yet?” the supervisor asked, peering out the window.

The driver was paying no attention as the supervisor looked out and issued this warning.

Meanwhile the street-sweeper kept on walking behind his cart, picking up pieces of paper and orange-peel, melon and watermelon rinds. He wondered if people on London streets discarded melon and watermelon rinds, or other things instead. He hadn’t asked his two daughters that question, but if he remembered, he would certainly do so next time. All he could remember was that they told him there were Arabs living in London; they would certainly discard pieces of paper, melon, watermelon rinds, and banana peels. Some of the Christians living in London would slip on them. Since people always discard skins in this alley, others will certainly keep on doing the same thing; after all, Arabs will always be Arabs, whether they’re from Casablanca or Mecca. That’s the way God made them: they peel and eat, and others sweep. Even sweepers peel and eat; sometimes they slip as well. In the end we’ll all slip our way toward God. No soul can know in which country it will finally slip nor on which curb or in which street. How many cabinet members have fallen from lofty heights and slipped to the ground, and how many sweepers? But once you’ve slipped, falling is not the same: the way a minister falls from on high is not anything like what happens to a street-sweeper. That, at any rate, is what he’d heard from his daughter who worked in the Social Security Office.

“Many employees fall down on our office-floor, Dad,” she said. “The cleaner must use something slippery to clean it. That’s just one possibility.”

“The only thing I know of to make employees slip is homemade soap. For my part, my daughter, I’m anxious to keep the alley clear of orange and banana peels so that no one will slip. I’ve done it for years, and it’s a job that’s helped you grow up.”

A boy now appeared out of a narrow alley and hit the street-sweeper in the face with a rubber ball. The kid started crying and ran away. The sweeper put his hand up and felt his face because the ball had hit him really hard. He sat down on the curb and started coughing again. This time, however, when he touched his lips, he noticed something red—blood. The ball had certainly hit him on a sensitive part of his face.

After a while he got up, then started pushing the cart again. The cut on his face was still bleeding. He still had a few meters of the alley left to clean, but behind him he was leaving a trail of blood for others to mop up. Before he reached the end of the alley, he totally collapsed. As he lay there spread-eagled on the street, no one could figure out what had happened.