The Fable

Following Mustafa’s imprisonment, I avoided the Jemaa for a while, finding it too crowded with unpleasant associations. In fact, for a few days I abandoned Marrakesh altogether and sought refuge in my parents’ home in the mountains. At the same time, I could not stay away from the city for any great length of time given that I felt obliged to visit my brother in his prison cell, and that necessitated my return sooner than later. But even after I came back to the city, it wasn’t easy for me to face up to the possibility that Mustafa would be behind bars for life. I was afraid for him, and my fear combined with despair to render almost unbearable the prospect of our meetings.

In the beginning, I tried to talk sense to him. I obsessed for days on end about the right way to make him see reason and even enlisted Ahmed’s help for the purpose. But we soon discovered that rational explanations were useless with a man bent on making reality conform to a dream. With the passage of time, Ahmed gave up on what he called a ridiculous endeavour, while I realized that with his uniquely irrational decision Mustafa had at least ceased to suffer inwardly. Pain, like remorse, subsides over time, but my brother’s love seemed to grow and take on a miraculous intensity that transcended everything. Still possessed by his memory of Lucia, he not only was incapable of talking about anything else, he could not even feign an interest in the rest of the world. In his determination to believe, he lived as if he had already made her his own. He laughed as he spoke and made me blush when he described her with impassioned words. It was obvious he had observed her closely in the little time he’d spent with her in order to appreciate her all the more. A smile, an intonation, a mere gesture, everything lent substance to the completely sincere but elegiac picture he drew of his beloved.

And so it was that, by and by, through him I came to know more about this perfect stranger, or, at least, that version of her he had made his own. In my presence he would recall that image, embroider it, adding all the qualities he’d ever imagined in his ideal woman, and become increasingly animated when my close and silent attentiveness appeared to encourage him.

One day he leant forward through the bars and rested his hands on my shoulders. It comforts me to confide in you, Hassan, he said. I hear myself recalling her to you and it makes her more real for me.

I’m glad, I said.

She fills my world, my Lucia…

He said her name with such tenderness, his voice so choked with the intensity of his emotions, that I turned my eyes to the ground out of respect.

Ah, Hassan, he went on, if I could only tell you what she’s like! Every day that I spend with her memory is like falling in love all over again. It’s like a daily revelation. It makes everything else incidental. How could I ask for more from life?

He was silent for a moment and then he said with a smile: That’s why I’ve come to believe that it is better to imagine than to possess.

Why do you say that? I asked.

Because possession destroys the dream. The dream itself is the truth, and she has given me the dreams of a poet.

He paused again, his eyes sparkling with passion. Then, in a low voice, he said: Make my story into a fable, Hassan, as only you can.

I seized the opportunity to urge him to tell me, once and for all, the truth about what had really happened that night in the souk.

I have already told you the truth, he replied in surprise. You are my brother and you practise a mantic art. Why would I lie to you?

I ignored his response, insisting on the unadulterated truth.

Make one up, then, if you choose not to believe me, he said with equanimity. You have all the necessary information.

Is that a response or an evasion? I countered, sounding more irascible than I’d intended.

It is neither, he answered.

So what you are proposing on my behalf is a series of variations based on lies?

Truth lies, Hassan. It is always masked by words. As a storyteller, you ought to know that more than anyone else.

My stories do not lie, I said doggedly. That is not in our tradition, nor in the legacy Father passed on to me, as it was bequeathed to him by his forefathers.

Mustafa threw up his hands.

You take my meaning too literally, he protested. There’s no point in my seeking your understanding in this matter. All we do is go round in circles.

He sounded deeply hurt, and I felt too disappointed in his continuing refusal to tell me the truth to consider his request. In the end, sitting across from each other, we remained lost in our own thoughts.

At length – more, I suspect, to break the uncomfortable silence than for any other reason – he asked me to describe the square as I had found it on my way to visit him.

Regretting my earlier recalcitrance, I engaged all my powers of description. I had the sensation of composing, of painting images from deep within myself. A sense of relief overcame me at being able to thus render service to my unfortunate brother. I felt repose as I narrated, and satisfaction.

Knowing his affinity for Essaouira, I began by comparing the shimmering lights of the Jemaa at night to the sea. This brought up the memory of sitting with him on the sea wall during my visit to Essaouria and the sudden gust of wind that blew up from across the promontory. We had needed both our hands to hold on to the single umbrella we’d brought and even then we’d been soaked by the spray from the sea.

I told Mustafa that I’d been reminded of that marine wind by the light breeze that had been blowing across the Jemaa as I’d made my way to the prison. In the radiance of the afternoon I had enjoyed the brisk walk. Casting my mind back, I went on to describe the winter sky, the play of clouds and sunlight, the Jemaa’s quicksilver shifts of mood, its iridescent crowds and colours. The bright light had made the square resemble a snowy plain such as is found in the foothills of mountains and it had made me homesick for the highlands. Everywhere there was a sheen as though a spray of water had just passed over. But in the depths of the souks, it was, as always, as black as night.

I went on in this manner for a while, adding all kinds of details to my descriptions so that my brother would know exactly what I had seen, such as the motionless cloud above the Koutoubia minaret that seemed to encapsulate all the colours of the universe, or the trail of kilims hanging in mid-air on a clothesline in the alleyway behind the police station, or the mellow winter sun that stood directly above the Jemaa as if on a pedestal.

That was wonderful, Hassan, Mustafa said with a dreamy glint in his eyes when I’d finished. Thank you for indulging me.

He gazed at me at length, as if seeing me for the first time, and I saw the gratitude in his look. I knew that he had forgiven me for my earlier obtuseness, and I experienced such intense compassion that tears came to my eyes. The thought that I could transport him out of his cell with a few simple words moved me so deeply that my breath caught at my throat. I felt unable to speak when he asked:

Do you remember how hot it used to be when we came down with Father during the summer? Sometimes it was so hot I saw double. There was so much heat. So much light.

He seemed to forget everything as he watched the dying rays of the sun through the window set high in the wall. I joined him in contemplation and had a sensation I hadn’t experienced in years: of seeing life through new eyes. In that half-light, the dingy room transformed into a space of tranquillity. Everything seemed boundless. In the immensity of that moment, my brother’s love was all that existed in the world, and it was all that mattered. I sat there in silence, refraining from interrupting the idyll, watching the sky turn from light to dark and wondering at the swiftness of the alteration. Only the horizon, with its thick mantle of clouds, remained bright and luminous. Then even that darkened, and an indigo aureole spread across the firmament.

Before leaving, I asked Mustafa if he needed anything from the outside world.

Nothing, he answered gently. Thank you, Hassan. You give me enough. You help me recall my beloved and engrave her memories ever deeper into my being. It’s the finest, most considerate gift anyone could ask for.