A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me Read online

  Award-winning Moroccan novelist and screenwriter Youssef Fadel was born in 1949 in Casablanca, where he lives today. During Morocco’s Years of Lead he was imprisoned in the notorious Derb Moulay Chérif prison, from 1974 to 1975. A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me is part of his modern Morocco series, along with A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me (Hoopoe, 2016).

  Alexander E. Elinson is an associate professor of Arabic at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

  A Beautiful White Cat

  Walks with Me

  Youssef Fadel

  Translated by

  Alexander E. Elinson

  This electronic edition published in 2016 by

  Hoopoe

  113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt

  420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018

  www.hoopoefiction.com

  Hoopoe is an imprint of the American University in Cairo Press

  www.aucpress.com

  Copyright © 2011 by Youssef Fadel

  First published in Arabic in 2011 as Qitt abyad jamil yasir ma‘i by Dar al-Adab

  Protected under the Berne Convention

  English translation copyright © 2016 by Alexander Elinson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN 978 977 416 776 8

  eISBN 978 161 797 745 9

  Version 1

  They say: ‘Our Lord! Hasten for us our sentence

  even before the Day of Reckoning!’

  (Qur’an 38:16)

  Foreword

  ON NOVEMBER 6, 1975, a mass government-orchestrated demonstration saw 350,000 Moroccans cross Morocco’s southern border into what was then the Spanish-occupied Sahara. The goal was to pressure Spain to withdraw from the territory it had occupied and administered since 1884. The Green March (so named for the color of Islam symbolizing the Islamic rhetoric with which Morocco’s King Hassan II imbued the action) was preceded by a movement of armed Moroccan troops into the territory the week before on October 31, 1975. Facing pressure from the Sahrawi nationalist Polisario Front, as well as from the United Nations and the Moroccan government, Spain finally withdrew on November 14, 1975. Morocco and Mauritania moved in to take control, but under continued pressure from the Polisario, Mauritania withdrew in August 1979. As the sole remaining power in the territory, Morocco became the target of an armed struggle for Sahrawi independence that continued until the UN-brokered a ceasefire in 1991 with the promise of a referendum for or against independence. Neither side has been able to agree on the terms of the referendum, most notably the definition of eligible voters, and the referendum has yet to occur, with Morocco’s official stance now a proposal for autonomous Sahrawi governance under Moroccan rule.

  The status of the Western Sahara (or Southern Provinces as it is referred to in official Moroccan parlance) remains highly contested, as Morocco has viewed the territory as part of Greater Morocco since before it gained independence from the French in 1956. Immediately following independence, Istiqlal (Independence) Party leader Allal al-Fassi proclaimed on June 19, 1956: “If Morocco is independent, it is not completely unified. Moroccans will continue the struggle until Tangier, the Sahara from Tindouf to Colomb-Bechar, Touat, Kenadza, Mauritania are liberated and unified. Our independence will only be complete with the Sahara!” This notion was embraced both by King Muhammad V and his son Hassan II, who ascended to the throne in 1961, and in fact, the Sahara issue served him well as a patriotic rallying cry to solidify support for his rule.

  Following coup attempts on July 10, 1971 and August 16, 1972, Hassan II purged his military of several high-ranking officers. He faced a general crisis of confidence, and took a series of measures to try to reestablish his authority and popularity among Moroccans. He instituted a land reform program aiming to ‘Moroccanize’ farms and small businesses still held by non-Moroccans, and in 1973 he sent Moroccan troops to Egypt and Syria to join the fight with Israel in an attempt to shore up his anti-Zionist credentials. Arguably his boldest and most effective move, however, was to ramp up rhetoric in the summer of 1974 in support of Spanish withdrawal from the Western Sahara and its (re-)incorporation into Greater Morocco. These efforts built upon already enthusiastic popular support for the territory’s liberation from Spain and (re-)integration into Morocco. Hassan II eventually gained approval for his claim from most Arab countries, as well as from the United States and France.

  This enthusiasm, however, was met with opposition from the indigenous Sahrawis. The Polisario Front, established in 1973 as a nationalist resistance movement that aimed to expel the Spanish from the region, refocused its attentions and activities on Morocco and Mauritania until its pullout in 1979. By April 1976, as the conflict escalated, much of the Western Sahara’s local population had left the region, with tens of thousands settled in Polisario-administered camps in Tindouf, Algeria. Inside the Moroccan-controlled territories, Morocco faced increasing guerilla attacks that it countered with troop build-ups and the building of security walls that aimed to stem the outflow of refugees and prevent attacks against Moroccan forces. Although the Moroccan military held a material advantage over the Sahrawi resistance, Moroccan troops—largely peasants from the north and urban conscripts—were at a distinct disadvantage, unaccustomed as they were to the extreme weather conditions and geography of the desert. These conscripts and their commanders were also unable to adapt to the guerilla warfare used by the resistance. Sahrawi fighters were familiar with the terrain and territory, were able to move about largely undetected, and were thus able to keep the Moroccan troops on the defensive, with little to do but wait for the next attack.

  This war resulted in a dramatic increase in the size of the Moroccan military, from 56,000 troops in 1974 to 141,000 in 1982. The increase in military expenditures, combined with growing economic troubles that were exacerbated by population growth outpacing agricultural output, crop failures, and drought in the early 1980s, all led to a serious national crisis. The heady days of patriotic fervor that had immediately followed the Green March in 1975 had given way to a precarious economic and social situation that severely tested Moroccans’ faith in their country, their political leaders, and their king.

  King Hassan II (r. 1961–99) ruled Morocco with an iron fist, responding to challenges to his rule from military leaders and leftist/Marxist activists with mass arbitrary imprisonment, mock trials, torture, and forced disappearances. The Years of Lead in the 1970s and 1980s were a time considerable brutality and fear in Morocco, and it was only in the 1990s that Morocco’s human rights record began to improve. Despite considerable progress in terms of human rights and press freedoms, limits remain. Journalists and activists still routinely face fines and jail time for transgressing article 41 of the Moroccan Press Code that prohibits anyone from questioning the sanctity of “the Islamic religion, the monarchy, or Morocco’s territorial unity.” Vague as this prohibition is, writers are constantly testing its limits. In the Western Sahara itself, there continue to be reports that torture and forced confessions are still practiced by Moroccan authorities against Sahrawi advocates for independence and human rights.

  Hassan, one of two narrators in A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me is a comedy performer with leftist tendencies who finds himself drafted into Moroccan military service and sent off to the desert to fight a war that he and his fellow conscripts do not understand, against an enemy that is elusive and really no different from themselves. His father, Balloute, is a jester in the royal court whose proximity to the ki
ng offers a rare glimpse into the monarch’s inner circle, his habits, his sense of humor, his flaws, and the rewards and dangers of living so close to power. Their narratives intertwine not only as those of a son and his father, but as complementary views of the kingdom from both inside and outside the palace walls.

  This novel depicts Morocco in the 1980s during the war in the Sahara, and is about how the war, and rule of Hassan II, permeated every aspect of Moroccan life. A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me combines comedy and tragedy to examine the role of violence, power, and authoritarian control. One might recognize real historical figures, such as Hassan II, General Ahmed Dlimi (d. 1983) who was the king’s right-hand man and commander of forces in the Sahara, the king’s real court jester Mohammed Binebine (d. 2008), and others. What is remarkable about this novel is that Youssef Fadel has created a fictional world that evokes these personalities and this time, but is not bound by them. With characters comic and tragic in their humanity and in their attempts to find respect and love in a place where power is concentrated in the hands of the very few, the novel depicts life as so unpredictable, cruel, and ridiculous, it is difficult to know when to laugh, and when to cry.

  Alexander E. Elinson

  1

  Day One

  I HAD DREAMED OF THE desert, almost like the one surrounding me now. A desert slapped by blazing whips of sunlight. A fort, a burning tavern, a purple road like a thin strip along the horizon. I saw all of this in the dream, months before actually finding myself here. I hadn’t set foot in any desert before that dream. I had never passed by any fort or gone into any tavern. All of this I saw in the dream. It was just like this, in almost the same baffling order. The burning tavern first, then the fort made of clay, then the road, the same purple shade tending toward blue, and the same sun whose heat continued to burn in one’s memory long after it was gone. There were soldiers playing cards, unaware of the fire consuming the tavern and of the pillars of smoke rising from holes in the foundation and walls, making it difficult to see. And there I was, calmly searching under tables and between legs for something I was unable to find, not even knowing what I was looking for. Neither the fire’s smoke nor the noise of the card players distracted me. I saw all of this in the dream, just like I said. How could I possibly have imagined that a few months later I would find myself sitting in the same tavern I had seen in the dream, a few dozen meters from the fort made of clay, that I had also seen in the dream, watching over the road stretched out like a thin line drawn on the horizon?

  I’m now sitting in the same tavern, but without the fire, and without the smoke. I’m watching the same road, but it’s not deserted. There are trucks passing by from time to time. For their part, the soldiers are standing at the counter drinking indifferently rather than playing cards, and I’m not searching for anything, neither under tables nor between legs. Rather, I’m thinking of Zineb.

  In the dream I hadn’t seen the waterwheel whose water had dried up long ago, nor had I heard the sound of the turning axle moving uselessly, perhaps only because of the small breeze still softly and mercifully blowing. Purple stone everywhere. An expanse of purple stone starts immediately behind the tavern. Purple stone, a purple sky, and an evening not too different in color. The air is heavy. We can barely breathe. A faint breeze blows through the small, narrow window. Stone, a sky, an evening. And this tavern resembling a wooden hut cast out into the empty waste, with a narrow window looking out toward the fort, the six date palms, and the stone road—purple, distant, and aligned with the horizon that separates the purple stone from the purple sky. I don’t see the waterwheel because it’s on the other side.

  Not too far away, a soldier plays his stringed instrument. His name is Haris Sahrawi, and he is the guard. He sits at the fort’s door covered with a cloak that has acquired a gray tinge—the color of the desert evening descending upon him. It is his turn to serve sentry duty. Whenever evening falls upon him during guard duty, he thinks about his wife and children back on the islands off the coast, and intense longing overwhelms him. Every once in a while an argument rises up inside the fort between the soldiers playing cards at Sergeant Bouzide’s place, followed by the sound of a passing truck in the distance. It’s carrying water to a base farther down the road. The truck doesn’t turn toward our fort. We get our share of water from the well.

  That’s it. The fort, the tavern next to it, an argument, the purple hue spreading out in every direction, and the four of us at the counter.

  Coincidence and military service have gathered us together here. A conscript named Brahim is blowing cigarette smoke at a small turtle crawling along the bar. He waits for it to walk a little bit before returning it to where it had started, then he blows smoke on it again, laughing. Mohamed Ali doesn’t laugh because he doesn’t like joking around. He’s from Zagoura, in his fifth month here. And there’s Naafi. Naafi is a conscript from Marrakech, like me. We arrived on the same day two months ago. His bed is next to mine. He’s a student who has finished his first year. He knows the area because during summer vacations he worked as a tourist guide. He loves the desert and he adores Fifi, the tavern’s owner. Whenever he’s not on guard duty or cleaning the courtyard, he’s leaning on the counter suggesting changes he’ll make to the bar after he and Fifi get married. She tells him she’s going to go back to Tangier and come up with some sort of plan once she gathers enough money here, if the war continues for another few years, but Naafi doesn’t pay any attention to what she says. He goes into the kitchen and comes out with his mouth full, jaws working indifferently, as if he was in his own house. Or he wanders around the tables of the dining room, smoking and moving with deliberate steps. It’s not the walk of a soldier or of a civilian. Rather, it’s the walk of Alain Delon, just as he saw him in one of his films.

  Then there’s Brigadier Omar, whom no one likes simply because he’s a malicious person. He likes to do wicked things for no real reason. Two steps away from me he sways, almost falling over, but is saved by the bar that continues to prop him up as he curses a devil only he can see. And Fifi stands there like a man, cigarette not leaving her lips that are stained blue by cheap wine, disdainfully watching what Brahim is doing with the turtle, yet unable to kick him out because he spends what little money he has there. No one knows her real name. They call her Fifi. She’s beautiful, no older than thirty. Her face has light freckles. Her hair is blond and her smile provides a bit of cheer to this place. She came from Tangier two years ago, and is not allowed to sell the soldiers drinks, cheap or not. Therefore, she serves them “under the table,” as they say. Captain Hammouda tolerates her because of her smile and the light freckles on her face. So, there’s Fifi, Brigadier Omar, the conscript Brahim, the soldier Mohamed Ali, and Naafi. And then there’s me, wondering how I found myself in a place I saw in a dream six or seven months ago.

  The picture of Alain Delon never leaves Naafi’s pocket. He has a color picture of him and a mirror he uses to comb his hair back when he wakes up, the same way Alain Delon does. When he sleeps, he places his pants under the quilt so that the crease remains visible and straight, just like Alain Delon’s pants. And when he sits at the counter to smoke, he waits for Fifi to turn toward him so he can raise his right eyebrow, just as he saw Alain Delon do in one of his first films. Fifi is only interested in him as someone who says funny things. Of greater importance to her is what she nervously follows Brahim doing with the poor turtle. When Brahim is sure she is watching him with those nervous eyes, he places his hand on its back like a civilized person who loves turtles. She approaches him, fills his glass while drawing on her cigarette, and seizes the opportunity to return the turtle to a little plate of palm leaves, placing it on the inside corner of the counter. Brigadier Omar, who is still not sure whether he’s going to fall or not, finally falls. He shoots a glance at everyone, wondering which of us made him fall. Then he grabs his glass, holding on to it as if it will help him get up, and there he remains, wondering whether he’ll be able to get up or
not. Finally, he gets up.

  I’m not thinking about life at the base, or the desert I saw in the dream. Rather, I’m thinking about military service. “Eighteen months. Just eighteen months, after which you can return to civilian life and continue performing your sketches in cabarets and private salons as you were doing before. But military service is obligatory!” That’s what the commanding officer made clear when we were in the capital. Everything was going just fine for me at the time, just about. I had left Zineb sick and bedridden, and work wasn’t going as I would have liked, but I had high hopes for the future. In the last few months I had been able to put on a few private performances in front of a group of engineers and doctors. In those shows I made fun of the prime minister, who had suggested his government prepare an educational curriculum enumerating the virtues of fasting, which he would then distribute to schools and institutes with the goal of having people forgo the habit of eating, because of the exorbitant cost of wheat to the national treasury. I also had jokes about hard currency and other stories that resonate among the elite. I had been performing this sketch for a while now because the audience I performed for knew it, had memorized it, and came to expect it. Many of my sketches contain the same elements. They always resonated with large numbers of people, and the press wrote about their boldness, considering them politically committed works, just as some considered me a leftist. I’d be a leftist if they insisted, but on my own terms.

  As I said, everything was going just fine. It couldn’t have been that these sketches, meant to make people laugh, were the reason behind the call to duty. I don’t have enemies who would want to send me to the front. Surely my father couldn’t be behind it. I was twelve or thirteen years old when he left his wife’s bed; when he disappeared from the house for good. I’m twenty-seven now. That year, the year of his disappearance, my mother maintained that he still set up his performance circle in the Djemaa El-Fna square. But after a year, he disappeared from there too. Where did he go? God only knows. Then we heard that he had become a jester in the king’s palace. We left him in his palace and no longer thought of him. We forgot him just as he forgot us. I didn’t think of him when my sister Fadila had an epileptic seizure in the middle of the alley and fell convulsing into the dirt, the neighbors carrying her unconscious back to our house. I didn’t think about his absence from our table. I didn’t think about him when my mother joined the traditional arts collective in order to provide for us. And I didn’t think of him when I received that sudden call, at a time when everything was basically going all right, despite Zineb’s illness. I had been completely engrossed in preparing a new show about Tariq bin Ziyad, the Berber who, despite not knowing Arabic, wrote his famous speech. In the end, I blamed it on the dream. As long as I dreamed of this place, and as long as this place existed, I would have to see it one way or another. But how would I have seen it without being forced to? Is there a more direct way to get there than through compulsory military service? Compulsory and obligatory, no way around it, just as the officer had said.