We heard the sound of machines even before we crossed over the wires, stopping in the middle of the courtyard that was covered with prickly grass. We didn’t go as far as the storage shed door. That was because Father appeared—looking like he had before, all covered in sawdust, happier than he’d ever been, in the bloom of youth, beaming because of a victory we hadn’t yet seen, hands on his hips in a deliberate challenge, surrounded by four black guys standing in the same challenging way—preventing us from going any farther. The National Department of Electricity employee seemed small in front of him, worthless and lacking any authority. All of a sudden, he no longer seemed as intimidating as he had before. To be honest, he seemed insignificant to me, inspiring not the slightest bit of fear after his initial defeat. Then, when he came back after a few days, asking whether Father had returned from his travels, he didn’t wait around for me to come up with a lie on par with those about the export office, Japanese citizenship, and Turkish animal feed. He just handed me a hundred-dirham bill as soon as he stopped in front of me, a bill I was in most urgent need of. From that moment on, he became the most insignificant person as far as I was concerned, like someone you could easily pass by anywhere without giving a second glance or paying any attention to at all. I could have closed up the workshop and headed down to the beach, leaving him standing at the door like a beggar. I really could have told him that he had come back from Agadir and flown to Tokyo (this last thought almost caused me to break out into hysterical laughter). And I could have quite simply asked for another bill or two. But I remembered the ceiling the employee had talked about before. The four black guys looked like they were charged with guarding someone important. Their faces had the same stern look Father’s had, like a well-trained gang, organized and ready. What could the employee do? I had never seen him look so fragile. So much so that I wondered where the fear he used to inspire had gone. Right then, it would have been better for him to go get his pail and fishing rod, and head down to the shore rather than ask about the ceiling or make a fuss about why it was delayed. Unfortunately, he didn’t have this gear with him, and anyway, it only would have made him appear even more insignificant. The image of him carrying what looked to be a pail and fishing rod, with the smell of sardines rising from him, cheered me up in a way I hadn’t expected it to.
It was as if we were in an arena, with me watching two wrestlers and knowing in advance which way the match was going to go. They stood there facing one another for a while, each evaluating the strength of his opponent as if trying to intimidate the other one first. Each concealed the weapons he had sharpened beforehand, or at least tried to make it look that way. I walked away a bit so as to retain the drama of the scene. I stood not too far away, between the two of them, like the referee; a referee who knew from the start that he was going to side with one of the two opponents, no matter which way the battle went. Like someone watching two contestants he knew very well in open battle, but who pretended that he didn’t know either of them so as not to make the match appear to be rigged. But he leaned in favor of one of them. Not because of kinship or blood, but because of a defiant, solemn stance, or because of each combatant’s past history. Out of sympathy for him, because of the hands on his hips, he favored the man covered in sawdust. Father shifted his weight from one leg to the other now, like someone who knew how the fight would turn out, and said, “Everything comes in due time,” as he looked at the black guys rather than the employee. In a voice containing a little modesty, and quite a bit of mockery, the employee responded, “What time, Si Omar? The time has passed.”
“Everything comes in due time.”
The only thing missing from the mosque was Father’s ceiling.
Working, working. His words were filled with contempt. They contained hatred for his adversary even before they’d climbed into the ring. “Everything comes in due time . . .” His ideas only emerged from his head when he pleased. Thoughts had their moods.
“Do you know anything about wood, my good employee? Do I know anything about electricity? Why don’t you worry about your job? What is your job? Stringing electrical cables? Well then, string your cables and leave us alone.”
“And the ceiling?”
“Why doesn’t everyone just stick to where they belong? Do you understand anything about wood, ornamentation, and coloring? Do you know what Casablanca red is? Do you know, first of all, who invented it?”
“But where’s the ceiling?”
“It’s around.”
“Can we see it?”
“No.”
The four black guys with their broad arms crossed over their chests moved closer to Father, as if assuring the employee that there was more abuse to come. What flowed from Father’s tongue came to resemble a song. That’s because Father was a poet. Does the employee even know anything about a thing called poetry? What is paronomasia? What are homonyms? Does the National Department of Electricity employee know what juxtaposition is? It is shade and light together, one next to the other. Now I was hearing Father’s old, true voice. I recognized it, and I could tell from its tone that he was intoxicated. Now he recounted his glories. Then he moved to his favorite story—the sixty-sided sittiniya dome that he constructed in the Dar Pasha house. “Do you even know what a sittiniya is? Three full years to make one dome.” And his story with the pasha? Does the employee know it? To this day, all Marrakechis recall and recount it. Once, while he was explaining to the pasha what he was doing as the pasha watched him walking in circles around the courtyard for three full days, touching neither wood nor chisel, nor mixing a color, Father told him, “I’m a poet, not a carpenter forced to work out of necessity. I’ve never begged in exchange for my art.” He picked up his tools and carried them back to his house. After a week, he went back to work in the pasha’s palace and the pasha didn’t ask about anything anymore. He didn’t say a word to him about how late the work was or why he stood there with his nose in the air watching the stars at noon. He gave him all the money, food, and clothing he needed and left him alone with his creativity. After three years, the dome was revealed. It was the sittiniya dome, none other.
“And the ceiling, where is it?”
“Someone like me,” my father said, “needs more time in order to finish work that’s on par with the sittiniya—that might even be better than it—because I’m a poet, not just any old carpenter slapping together cheap, crummy wood or making cupboards to sell in the market. Just finding the right wood is a difficult task. Cedar wood, but not just any cedar. Rather, cedar that when you smell it you say, ‘That’s it . . . that’s it.’ You fall in love with it at first sight, and you feel in your heart that it shares the same feeling for you. Then you need to allow sufficient time for each piece to find its special rhythm. The two tempos that will be like Neruda’s ‘Canto General.’”
The employee’s voice was lost in the poetic din. “And the ceiling, where is it?”
“Do I understand medicine, or engineering, or radar? Every profession has its experts. This is how the world has always been.” He laughed, happy, intoxicated, pleased with this last sentence. The tone of his voice changed, as if he were giving lessons to uninterested students. “When it has to do with carving wood, when it has to do with choosing wood, first of all, and then with preparing it, you won’t find a better hand than this one. Then there’s the other hand that ornaments it in a way you won’t find in any book—gardens, forests, butterflies, or seashells . . . or all of this together . . . or nothing of the sort. Your emotions are what put these visions before you. In the end, they’re nothing more than squares, circles, and triangles. Meticulously well-fitted shapes.”
The employee had already left.