Walking

It may have been 1950, ‘51, or ‘52; I don’t remember the exact date. The only thing I remember now is the tiny shacks scattered far apart and a few camelhair tents, also scattered and far apart. The tents were bigger than the shacks. The shacks were spread out along the left-hand side of the road toward the port of Mahdiya; the tents were pitched on an incline; at the bottom was a small lake where we used to play or swim, or else watch barefoot women wailing in a funeral cortege. I had no idea why so many of the people who lived in those camelhair tents on that incline below the road died in spite of having so much space. When it came to our shacks, the only people who remained in them were older children and a few women who bewitched men, women, and children.

But, as the saying goes, the one who bewitches the most is always the closest to death. Many are the witches who died for bewitching lots of men and women whom they’d never even seen. It may well be that some women living in the tents on the incline below the road used to do the same thing, and that explains why so many of them died and so few survived. At any rate, they’d all die just like their forebears.

We may die because of magic or for other reasons. Many other things can be deadly; people talk about them—something called cholera or plague. In 1950, ‘51, or ‘52 (as I mentioned above, I can’t remember which year it was), we’d hear women yelling at their children, “May God give you the plague!” It sounded like a nasty disease that killed people and livestock. For sure, the people from the incline by the lake-shore, behind whose coffins the women were wailing, had died of magic, plague, or the other thing that people called cholera. It was scary for us to watch barefoot, half-naked women slapping their thighs and faces as they walked behind the coffins. Some of them ripped their clothes apart until they were almost naked; others rolled in the dust or the mud by the lake. Their lamentations sounded like howling wolves (although I must admit, at the time I’d never seen a wolf in that region. However, when I grew up and you could hunt wolves in the forest, I ate wolf-meat grilled. The meat didn’t smell as bad as I’d been told; in fact, it was delicious. I’m convinced that, if people hadn’t eaten wolves’ meat, they would have died).

Hunger could kill too. In our house, for example, we only had plain bread and tea, and, if we could find any, herbs. We rarely saw sheep grazing on the slope by the lake on the other side of the road. Most of the time, if a lamb, sheep, or goat appeared, there was bound to be someone behind it, or else in front of or close by it. No animal could possibly graze on its own without someone to watch it; someone would be bound to steal it either to sell or slaughter. If you don’t keep a close eye on your animals, someone may come and steal them. It’s the same with women: if you don’t watch your wife carefully like an animal, some other man may come along and take her away. And that’s the way it is. You have to take care of your property, both livestock and humans. When I grew up and learned things, I became very fond of this hadith: “Everyone is a caregiver, responsible for his flock.” Since the Prophet was himself a shepherd, he knew what he was talking about.

For that same reason, it seems that the people who lived on the slope on the other side of the road knew how to graze their cattle. But on our side of the road, where the scattered shacks were, all we had was a skinny cow. Needless to say, it didn’t belong to all of us; the owner was a crazy man from Bani Hasan who never talked to anyone. No one knew where he’d got the cow from. So we had dogs barking, frogs croaking, flies buzzing, and the cow mooing, along with the continuing silence of that crazy man who owned, fed, and guarded the cow—and once in a while even talked to it. Here again, when I grew up and understood things a bit more, I read a story by a Russian writer named Chekhov, about a coachman who used to talk to his horse, but I can’t say for sure that he was insane. So, who knows? Maybe the cow’s owner wasn’t insane, either. I can’t remember. It was back in ‘50, ‘51, or ‘52. In any case, at that time the cow was alive and living on the left side of the road leading to the port of Mahdiya on the Atlantic Ocean. It kept on mooing, while beneath the snow in White or Black Russia the horse might be neighing.

Anyway, there were shacks and camelhair tents, separated from each other by a road leading to the port of Mahdiya, and there was a small lake. Some people died, others survived. Wailing women slapped their thighs and cheeks and tore their clothes.

In life, all this will come to an end one day, just as many things have ended and others have started. For example, war may start, only to stop one day; then another will start, and it will come to an end, too. Someone may be born, while someone else dies. Livestock may be slaughtered, while other animals may be born, only to be slaughtered later; someone else may show up to slaughter, skin, and eat them. If he’s generous, he’ll donate some of the meat to his neighbors.

I realize that such things are rare, but it can happen. It certainly did when someone donated wolf-meat, and many people were disgusted. I heard my mother and aunts who came to this region Moroccans call “the West” talking about the number of animals that were slaughtered at one time; they also mentioned hunger and men joining the French army; some of them came home injured and ailing, while others had died. Their wives are still waiting for compensation from France.

In our shacks at least, we don’t have any war-wounded, but there may be some in those tents. By the roadside nearly two kilometers from our shacks there’s a French officer’s tomb built with cement and encircled by a chain fence; we would jump over it to get on top of the tomb and play on it. We had no idea why that tomb was there, all alone and solitary on the ocean beach; whereas the Christian cemetery was only about ten kilometers away. To tell the truth, the Christian cemetery was very beautiful; there were flowers and roses on each tomb, and at the iron gate, a living Moroccan was posted to stand guard over the dead. When we were children, we wanted to get into the cemetery, but that very alive Moroccan would threaten us with a big stick. He would be fully alert, even when he seemed to be fast asleep under the hood of his jallaba.

It is really nice to have a living Moroccan guarding dead Christians. Later I discovered that Islam is a religion of tolerance; but the Christians attacked us and kicked us out of Andalusia. According to what I’ve read, not one Christian stood guard over Muslim tombs; in fact, they actually exhumed the bodies.

We certainly didn’t do that to the French officer. All we did was play on his tomb. We’d find empty wine bottles. It was a lonely, isolated tomb with a tall tree behind it and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. How did this man come to die here? Nobody knows. He’s dead; that’s it. We’re all going to die, and nobody gets to choose his own tomb. Even if there’s a will, they’ll still choose it for him. The people on the other side of the road who’ve died probably didn’t leave a will, but they’ve certainly left dozens of children. They’ll be buried somewhere, will or no will.

Anyway, some people will be born and others will die, the way this French officer died. Instead of putting up this tomb, they could have hung his photograph somewhere. If he’s managed to do something with his life and wasn’t just “hardhearted,” he could have had a whole bunch of medals and decorations on his chest. But no matter.

So, once more, there were shacks and camelhair tents; and the road that led to the port of Mahdiya. It was a long, long way, and the she-donkey kept on walking. Where to? No one knows. Some people used to walk and live in shacks by the Atlantic Ocean; others walked and lived in camelhair tents. The French soldier was fated to remain isolated and alone, with children playing on top of his tomb.

Then one morning, I spotted some men, both Moroccans and foreigners, walking around; they were checking the shacks, talking and pointing, but not toward the camelhair tents. At noontime I saw women slapping their thighs and faces. The men had gathered under a fig tree and were talking. What were they talking about? No one knew.

Next morning, carts and trucks arrived and transported us all to the city’s suburbs. When I’d grown up and learned enough, I found out that they were intending to build a French naval base—which they did. Even so, they didn’t know what they were doing. They hadn’t put up a school by the shacks or camelhair tents, but they did build one in the city’s suburbs, and that’s where we all studied. If they’d never walked, talked, and built a naval base, we would never have left that place and studied. You only walk to the place that God has chosen for you.

There are those who walk to tombs. There are those who go on the pilgrimage by foot. But I took another path. When they evicted us from our shacks, I grew up and started learning things. I learned how to write stories like this one. So you should all start walking. It’s a long road, and the she-donkey. . . . And so forth.