The place that no one can avoid in Marrakech, however, is Jemaa el-Fnaa — which is present in most of the stories. Either the story starts in Jemaa el-Fnaa or it ends there. Sooner or later, the reader finds him or herself at an intersection where dark storytelling crosses this square full of life, which UNESCO has designated as part of humanity’s Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Jemaa el-Fnaa is a reliable source of joy — the square is a gathering place for singers and dancers, storytellers and charlatans, buffoons and dream snatchers, monkeys and snake charmers, fortune-tellers and women with henna-stained hands. Every evening the square transforms into the biggest open restaurant in the Arab world. Who would dare to follow these dark elements in the middle of such a joyous place? This, then, is what has made Marrakech Noir such a challenge for an editor, and for all the contributors as well. I will leave it for the reader to decide if we have succeeded.
Yassin Adnan
Marrakech, Morocco
June 2018
Translated from Arabic by Mbarek Sryfi
Part I
Hanging Crimes
The Mysterious Painting
by Fouad Laroui
Bab Doukkala
He walked through the door of the restaurant at twelve fifteen p.m., as he did every day.
Police Chief Hamdouch was a man of habit, borderline obsessive in the words of his dear departed wife, a Morocco-born Frenchwoman who’d died of a nasty case of tetanus after only a few years of marriage. Still a widower, and without any children, he ate lunch each day at Délices de l’Orient, opposite the Palais du Glaoui.
The proprietor, Driss Bencheikh, took great care to keep the chief’s table open between noon and two o’clock. If a distracted tourist or an insouciant local had the gall to sit there, Bencheikh would direct them to another table. He was, in a sense, acting in the name of the establishment, and that lent a certain brusqueness to his behavior. The establishment never asked nicely.
And so, Hamdouch sat down in the same chair, every day, at twelve fifteen p.m. A large painting hung on the wall facing him. The object had appeared in a rather mysterious manner, upon the chief’s third visit to the restaurant. He’d already grown slightly annoyed with it. Until his third visit, there’d been nothing in front of him but a dull ocher wall. He would eat his lunch staring into the middle distance, which suited him fine — he could think in peace. Then one day, without warning, this big, multicolored rectangle had materialized in front of him.
The chief was no art lover, even if he could appreciate old poems sung in dialect; in any case, he didn’t know a thing about paintings. At first, he simply noted the painting’s appearance in his field of vision, without attaching any more importance to it than was necessary. It was a small change in his routine, a tiny inconvenience. It vaguely bothered him, but it wasn’t, as they say, the end of the world. He resumed his habit of watching the street through the bay window that projected out from the center of the wall, seemingly monitoring the comings and goings of passersby — a professional tic, no doubt. But then, we all suffer from this particular pathology.
One day, he grew tired of seeing the same people coming and going on the sidewalk, mixed in with the tourists who were of little interest to him — people who were here today, clumsy and yammering, but always gone tomorrow. So he shifted his gaze slightly to the left, and, glass of tea in hand, focused on the painting. He had to squint a bit against the light, but he finally managed to make out a scene painted in garish colors — a scene containing several figures. One figure drew his attention, and he examined it more carefully. What the devil? he thought.
Hamdouch furrowed his brow and called imperiously to the proprietor: “S’si Driss!”
The man hurried over, drying his hands on a white napkin, and bowed slightly, a timid smile on his lips, ready to be of service.
The chief gestured at the object of his irritation with his right hand, which still held the glass of tea, so that he seemed to be raising a toast to who knows what — to art, perhaps?
“That... This... tableau!”
The chief used the French word, probably because he didn’t know the Arabic one, or had forgotten it.
“Yes, S’si chief?” replied the proprietor, in a tone that was equal parts cheerful and servile.
Hamdouch lowered his voice and spoke slowly, giving certain words an ominous inflection. He knew very well how to do this; he wasn’t a police chief for nothing. “Is that His Majesty the king, may God be his guide, there in the middle? The way he’s painted... it verges on disrespect!”
The proprietor threw a quick glance at the figure who occupied the center of the painting — a perfunctory glance, for his response was immediate, unhesitating: “No, no, my God! No! It’s the pasha. I mean the old pasha, Moulay Mimoun.”
“And yet, he’s in the center, a sort of grand seigneur on a handsome horse,” Hamdouch said. The chief set down his glass of tea and pointed implacably at the painting. “And behind him, someone’s holding a large white parasol. Several people are turned toward him... in fact, everyone is. You’d think it was His Majesty during the allegiance ceremony...”
“I promise you, S’si Hamdouch, it’s the pasha,” Driss repeated. “Even if his features aren’t very clear, you can certainly recognize his beloved horse.”
Reassured, the chief asked: “Well, which pasha is it? S’si Lamrani?”
“No, like I told you, it’s his predecessor, Moulay Mimoun.”
“I just wanted to be sure.” The chief nodded, took a sip of tea, and went back to examining the lively scene that stretched out before him in evocative colors.
After a few seconds, the proprietor understood that he was no longer needed and went on his way, swatting at a few imaginary flies with his napkin.
The next day, when Hamdouch sat down at his usual table, it was the painting he immediately turned to, even before glancing out at the street. Gloomy-eyed and jaw clenched, he stared intensely at it. That painting! He had dreamed of it during the night.
The chief hated dreams. Whenever he remembered one upon waking, he was furious. He felt degraded, humiliated, and suddenly unable to cope. It was as if he’d lost all control of himself during these nocturnal adventures where everything seemed possible — and that served God knows what purpose. Do cats dream? he wondered. If they don’t, then why do I?
Sitting up in bed, he would recite the traditional Muslim invocation — Cursed be Satan — but, not being totally uncultured, he wondered at the same time what a psychoanalyst might make of these absurd dreams. There were, of course, a few psychoanalysts in Marrakech — he had their information — but he wasn’t about to go consult any of them. To do so would be to admit defeat. You don’t tell a police chief to lie down on the couch. It’s his job to grill suspects, not the other way around. And what could be more suspicious than a follower of Lacan in Marrakech?