Dear Guillaume, let me adjust your position a bit; I would like to rest your head on my knees. My, my, how heavy you are! I would like to have you as close to me as possible so I can whisper some last words to you.
Please, Guillaume, don’t head into the void with that sarcastic look on your face. That’s what you always used to do in responding to my stupid questions or justifying your opinions. Don’t do that when I tell you that the reason I killed you was those green eyes. Don’t scoff like that — I think it’s true.
Your eyes! It is only now that I can carefully examine them as much as I like, without bothering you or having you stare at me with that syrupy look. But now their light has gone out. That green color has now turned into something dead. The gleam of life has left them; their pupils have faded away as though they were made of plastic.
Do you realize, dear Guillaume? I was thinking back to the moment of our very first meeting near the Cinema Mabrouka. I could see your huge hairy fingers reaching up to your sunglasses and preparing to take them off. A smiling acknowledgment of our agreement was lighting up your face, but then you changed your mind and kept them on. At this point, I was telling myself that if you had actually taken them off, your misty eyes with their nasty green color would have repelled me, and I would have refused to be with you. I would not have assumed this heavy burden that will keep weighing me down like an ugly hump for as long as I live.
Just imagine, dear Guillaume, a normal, trivial movement, repeated thousands of times a day. You could have made my fate completely different. I could still be trawling on the edges of Jemaa el-Fnaa and walking the streets in Gueliz, picking up customers rather than simply getting old and letting my bones freeze inside the walls of the Boulmharez Prison. And most likely you would still be enjoying life, pursuing your hankering for hairy brown bodies. Eventually somebody else would kill you, but this time for an obvious and unambiguous reason; either that, or the police would surprise you and put an end to your passions.
My dear, I can fully understand the panic you must have felt when we met for the first time. There you were, with your powerful, athletic figure chasing after my own puny brown body that was strutting along, putting everything on display. You were walking along like any normal tourist who had come to expose his body to the Marrakech sun and his spirits to its delights, but I was exposing you and making your inclinations public. At the time you must have thought people were watching you, and that made you anxious. When we entered a dark alley opposite the post office and I spoke to you, I could tell how worried you really were; beads of sweat were glistening on your forehead. You had heard the comments hurled at us like invisible rocks from passersby, beggars, and shopkeepers standing by the doors of their stores. Those things no longer bother me, but you did not understand a word they were saying.
As soon as I spotted you that very first time, walking along the side of the square with a huge camera over your shoulder, I could easily guess what kind of pleasure you had in mind. There was no need for us to even look at each other — the smile you gave me managed to combine lust with something like fear. No, as soon as I saw you sauntering around, anxious, alone, and without a woman, hiding behind your huge sunglasses, I knew exactly what you wanted. I was certain that women did not interest you. With that, I hurried over to you before someone else snatched you away first.
It looks like I’m getting a Dutch or German customer, I told myself, as I hurried toward you and took in your enormous manicured body. It was then that I realized you were another Frenchman, but different.
Oh my dear! I’m exhausted and sad. I need to rest. If only I could get a bit of sleep, but my eyelids keep resisting and refuse to stay closed. And you, my dear Guillaume, aren’t you exhausted as well? There you were from the very start, lying on your back and leaning slightly to the right. Now that you’re dead, perhaps you really want me to help change your position, but I too am unable to move.
How long have you stayed like this, my dear Guillaume? An hour or less, a day and night, forever?
Beyond the window, lights are shining in the neighboring apartments, shadows come and go, and television screens gleam and dance. Other bodies might well be making love as though there were no corpse in this apartment, a murdered man and his murderer...
I can hear a scary noise in the building. Let’s listen for a bit.
At last — the police seem to have arrived. I can hear their voices bouncing off the walls, magnified as though through loudspeakers. There was the sound of their footsteps coming cautiously up the stairs. By now they’re clearer and louder. They bang on the door for some time, but I can’t get up to open it. They’ll knock it down. They’ll still find everything in place: the murdered man, his murderer, and the weapon. They’ll face an extremely simple problem, one that won’t require any real effort to investigate.
They’re right by the door now. At first, they knock quite normally, just like any guest or neighbor. But after some tense moments of silence, the knocks get louder and more insistent. Then they start fiddling with the lock; it looks as though it won’t hold out for long.
Now here they are, pushing the door down. That causes a ringing in my ears. I’ve gradually gotten used to it, and now it goes on and on, like the music of finality.
As though on a bright, flickering television screen, I picture myself as an old man, back bent over, gray hairs invading my temples, walking along the wall of the Boulmharez Prison on a steaming-hot Marrakech day. An ailing spirit lingers inside this man, and he drags an exhausted body around, no longer recalling how to walk on ground that was not bounded by walls or stifled by roofs.
Cautiously, the cops move toward the bedroom. Their highly trained senses tense at the stench of murder that pervades the entire apartment. And now they are using their bodies to block the entrance to the room.
My dear Guillaume, if only your eyes hadn’t been green — if only they hadn’t been green!
Translated from Arabic by Roger Allen
About the Contributors
Halima Zine El Abidine was born in Marrakech in 1954 and has published five novels: Obsession of the Return (1999), Citadels of Silence (2005), On the Wall (2012), The Dream Is Mine (2013), and It Wasn’t a Desert (2017). She has also written three plays: Who Is in Charge (1987), The History of Women (2003), and Hnia (2004).
Mohamed Achaari was born in 1951 in Moulay Driss Zerhoun. He has published a collection of short stories, eleven poetry books, and three novels. After being jailed for his political activities, he went on to serve in a variety of government posts, including as Minister of Culture between 1998–2007. He has twice been elected president of the Union of Moroccan Writers, serving from 1989–1996. He was the joint winner of the 2011 Arabic Booker Prize for his second novel, The Arch and the Butterfly.
Taha Adnan grew up in Marrakech and has lived in Brussels since 1996. He works at the Ministry for Francophone Education. A poet and writer, he directed the Brussels Arabic Literary Salon in Belgium. His poetry collections and plays have been translated into French, Spanish, and Italian, and published internationally. Two anthologies he edited, Brussels the Moroccan (2015) and This Is Not a Suitcase (2017), were published in French in Casablanca.