She had learned much about Morocco in the hammam, the ideal place for sociologists, psychoanalysts, historians, novelists, and even poets. For it is there, as they bathe, that women talk. It is the greatest divan in the world, a collective space, like taxis, where everyone has the right to speak up, to confide, to complain. It is there that women have for centuries been shedding tears and sharing those truths that the outside world wishes to neither see nor hear. It was in this haven that Khadija the seamstress had dared tell how she had caught her husband abusing the little apprentice who worked in her home, a sweet and talented girl of thirteen. The husband was sneaking into her bed and entering her from behind to avoid taking her virginity, and to punish him for this crime, Khadija had deprived him of insulin for an entire day, which had almost driven him insane. It was in the hammam as well that Kenja had heard the story of Saadia, possessed by the jinns* that lived in her old house: as soon as she lighted a lamp, an invisible hand would snuff it out. Now Saadia was familiar with every marabout in the country and spoke of nothing but what the jinns had commanded her to do. It was also in the hammam that Kenza had learned of the miraculous recipe to restore full potency to a man; at least three women had attested to the marvellous change in their husbands after they’d taken this potion. And it was in the hammam that Kenza had heard that pregnant African women were choosing to make the dangerous clandestine crossing in hopes that the police would take pity on them if they were arrested, and let them give birth on Spanish soil.
She had ‘learned’ Morocco in the hammam the way one learns a language both foreign and familiar. Silences, for example, could be translated. Back home, women who kept silent did so not because they had nothing to say, but because few people were capable of listening to and understanding what they did have to say. Now Kenza paid attention to women who kept their own counsel. The raw language used by women among themselves had been a shocking revelation to her: they spoke openly about genitals and accompanied their words with obscene gestures, showing no modesty, as if they were all sharing at last in the power of complete freedom. If they could have lived their whole lives in the hammam, they would have done so. It would have become the land of women, where they would summon men, to consume them as they pleased, returning them afterwards to their humdrum lives laced, of necessity, with cowardice and compromises great and small, a social routine where appearances are naturally intended to mask everything else. Imagine an immense hammam as the City of Women, with veils of vapor in the semidarkness, so conducive to speaking freely and in confidence, and secret networks of cellars, taverns, trap doors, antechambers where sexuality would at last be free, unfettered by modesty or moral judgement. Women would gather there to reorganize the relationships of society, or at least those between men and women. That would be a nice little revolution! ‘Wife, where are you going?’ the husband would shout. ‘I’m off to the hammam to bathe, pluck my eyebrows, and perfume myself just for you, so that tonight I may be yours, to do with as you please!’ The husbands would complain, ‘Oh, the hammam again!’ — and have no idea how much they’d be missing: yes, you poor husbands, everything escapes you, but you’ll never have a clue, never learn what goes on there, where women are so fond of gathering among themselves for a few hours undisturbed by husbands or children. ‘A curse on this place from which men are banished!’ husbands would cry. ‘We men, when we go to the hammam, we don’t dawdle and linger there, we wash, all done, then it’s off to work.’
And that’s how Kenza went to school in the hammam of Marshan. Which hadn’t prevented her from spending the rest of her time waiting, waiting, and waiting some more. Then the angel Gabriel arrived: Miguel, the friend in need, bringing with him both order and disorder. Without meaning to, he would seriously damage the life of her family, but no one would ever reproach him for that. Unlike her brother, Kenza was grateful to Miguel. She did not hold him responsible for her self-destructive fantasies. She’d felt this burning wound inside her for a long time, well before the advent of Migueclass="underline" the wound of waiting, ennui, and a future whose mirror had shattered.
Kenza had dozed off peacefully. Light music was playing on the radio. As if in a dream she heard: ‘The king is dead; long live the king!’ Then a cry, followed by applause, and then: ‘Hassan II is now at rest; may his son be ever blessed!’ Images began tumbling through her mind: men and women clothed in white immersing themselves in a river, then going to pray in a vast prairie bathed in light. No one was weeping. Children were running in all directions yelling, ‘Long live the king!’
But it was not a dream. Rising, she felt an unfamiliar sense of profound well-being, and even felt like shouting ‘Long live the king!’ Going to look in the bathroom mirror, she saw a radiant face there. It was hers. She was happy, and did not even try to discover the reason for this sudden joy. She ran cold water over her head but decided not to dry her hair; she liked feeling the water drip gently down her chest and shoulders. She was alone, and needed no one else. Later that evening, she watched a rebroadcast of the king’s funeral, followed by scenes of allegiance being pledged to a young man, who was deeply moved by his duty to carry on the centuries-old traditions of his dynasty.
It was then that Kenza felt the hour had come for her to go home at last to Morocco.
40. Returning
FOR SEVERAL DAYS now a few of them have already been on the move, guided by an irresistible longing to head far away, to put out to sea. They walk along, crossing cities, chilly wastelands, forests, fields. They walk day and night, driven by a force of such unsuspected strength that they feel no fatigue, not even the need to eat and drink. Borne along by winds bound for home, they advance without questions, without wondering what is happening to them. They believe that destiny is there, in that march, drawing them back to their roots, to their native land, a destiny that has appeared to them as a kind of command, an indisputable order, a time outside time, the ascent to a mountaintop, a wonderful promise, a shining dream, pressing on, heading over the horizon. They take to the road, heads high, with a warm breath at their backs: the wind of freedom. Sensing that this is the moment, this is the hour. This is their season, a season for no one but them, for all those who have suffered, who have not found their place in life. Without a single regret, they’ve left everything behind and have already forgotten why they ever left home. They head for the port, where a familiar inner voice tells them to embark on a boat christened Toutia, a modest craft aboard which the captain has planted a flowering tree with a sweet perfume, an orange or a lemon tree.
The captain is a man from another era, a kind of dandy with sideburns and a well-trimmed beard. His body is frail, and he is assisted by a graceful young woman with grey, almond-shaped eyes, a dark complexion, and long brown hair that blows in the wind. Some people claim she’s a countess; others that she’s a fashion model from Brazil; still others believe she is the captain’s wife, for does he not gaze at her with loving eyes? She is there to welcome the new passengers with open arms. Tattoos emblazon her forehead and chin. She places her right hand on the shoulder of the captain, who calls her Toutia the Sublime. And when the captain gives the signal, she sings an Andalusian Arab song in a clear, true voice; the song is suffused with wrenching nostalgia, and her voice breaks with emotion. Toutia closes her eyes and sings with all her heart. Everyone, on the dock as well as the ship, stops to listen to her in silence.