The following day Ahmad and I were returning to the house from a long dinner, when suddenly, a few steps from the house, our heads and bodies were assailed by a barrage of sticks and chains. As I fell to the ground, holding my hand to a bleeding wound on my forehead, I heard Ahmad call Ghaliya and all his neighbours by their full names and at the top of his voice. Then I heard him collapse amidst the sound of escaping footsteps while windows and doors were being opened as people woke up and rushed us to the emergency room.
I ended up with ten stitches in my head while Ahmad suffered a broken left hand, along with many other minor wounds of various hues. I was lying on my hospital bed when Ahmad was brought in — his moans preceding him — and laid in the bed opposite, his broken arm resting on his chest in a sling around his neck.
As soon as he was leaning comfortably on a large pillow, he turned to me and lamented, ‘They slaughtered us.’
‘If you don’t sell them the house, they’ll kill you!’ I said.
He replied angrily, ‘By God, never, even if they stick the Koutoubia minaret up my arse!’
I burst out laughing just as Ghaliya entered the room. At first and because of our laughter she thought she had entered the wrong room. Once she had made sure, she rushed in, exclaiming, ‘Is this a time for laughter?’
Ahmad joked with her to help her get over her fright. Once she had calmed down and was responding to his words with broken laughter, I beckoned her over, and when she came close I whispered in her ear, ‘The bride brought him good luck and happiness!’
All her resistance melted away and she gave in to laughter that made her whole body shake.
The police visited us at the hospital. Ahmad assured them that he was not aware of anyone who had a score to settle with him that would have led to such an assault. When the detective inspector turned to me, I lowered my gaze and assured him that Ahmad knew a specific party and person who had previously threatened him for refusing to sell him his house. I assured the officer that although I had nothing to do with the matter, I declared, on my own responsibility, that the only party that would benefit from this attack was the one I had mentioned. Ahmad shouted and swore at me, but I maintained my accusation each time he calmed down.
The detective inspector asked me later if I had a legal connection to the house, and if I did, had I received a threat from anyone. I told him I did not. He gave a broad grin and then left with his team.
The following day, almost all the national press — the independents, the party newspapers and, according to Ahmad, those backed by powerful personalities — carried photographs of us lying side by side in hospital. Our faces revealed the traces of late-night partying more than they did the effects of the attack. There were various accounts of our ordeaclass="underline" some concerned the familiar property dispute, others gave the attack a mysterious political dimension and others made crude allusions to immoral ventures.
Since we left hospital on the day these stories appeared, the old house started to heave with visitors from midday. By evening — and typically for Ahmad — the whole of Morocco was having its picture taken with his broken hand. There were journalists, politicians, artists, writers and celebrities from the left, the right, the centre and the margins; people from the political administration, royal circles and civil society. Ahmad was in full splendour as he held court, welcoming, bidding farewells and dispensing biting remarks. When the president of the Council of Ulema noticed that the break was, by God’s grace, to his left hand and would not interfere with his ability to write, Ahmad shouted at the top of his voice, ‘Eminent Faqih, once again the Left is broken!’
I wrote two articles about the incident focusing on the role of the real-estate mafia in Marrakech. These were followed by a rebuttal from the person accused of being behind the attack. This took the form of a verbatim copy of Ahmad’s statement to the police and a complete denial of the existence of a score to settle. The rebuttal concluded with the following sentence: ‘No one sells and no one buys in this story!’ All that had been concocted in the matter, he implied, was simply the product of the imagination of a journalist in search of fame.
Ahmad was ecstatic at this denial. He did not give a damn that I had been insulted, but kept repeating that what mattered most was the official, public and clear denial.
Ahmad and Bahia got married on a weekday without any celebration. The following week, however, they sent a card to all their friends and acquaintances informing them of the marriage. Before they left for Italy on their honeymoon, Bahia invited me to lunch at a restaurant overlooking the Bou Regreg. While we were sipping our coffee, she asked if I still suffered from those strange symptoms I’d had. I tried to explain to her that despite losing my sense of smell and the ability to respond to any concrete or abstract sensation, I believed I understood life better and did not experience any handicap as a result of what I endured.
Then we recalled our crazy plans, the rubbish dump monument and the arch at the mouth of the river, and we laughed until Bahia observed sadly that we now laughed at our projects no matter how important they were in our lives, whereas we used to cry for the smallest failure in Nicaragua. I said that the saddest thing was having cried in the past.
As she was getting ready to leave I secretly thanked her because she had not mentioned Ahmad. She handed me a carefully packed parcel and said, sobbing, ‘These are some of Yacine’s clothes.’
I walked her to her car and felt downhearted. As soon as she disappeared from view behind the restaurant’s fence, I was overcome with profound anxiety. If Yacine had not appeared right then, I would have thrown the parcel in the river because it resembled something bleeding.
He said, ‘You seem to be making the front page nowadays.’
‘Not to my credit though.’
‘You’re too modest. Your article on the real-estate mafia caused a big stir.’
‘I hope it won’t cause the sticks and chains to stir again.’
‘It might stir something more dangerous.’
‘Are you warning me?’
‘I’m not qualified to answer. Listen, I have information unrelated to that subject which I must reveal to you.’
‘What kind of information?’ I asked.
‘Something horrific is being cooked up in Marrakech.’
‘Like what?’
‘A terrible explosion!’
‘When?’ I asked.
‘No one knows.’
‘When you say information, do you mean specific information about the group, the people and the whole scenario, or is it only a prediction?’
‘A bit of both. If you take the fact that I am talking to you from the afterlife into account, it’s a prediction. But if you get rid of these imaginary boundaries, it is factual information with only the date and time missing.’
‘We must organise ourselves to face it then.’
‘Exactly. But take care, you absolutely cannot tell anyone about this,’ he insisted.
When I stepped out of the taxi, my hand was hurting. I realised that I was gripping the bundle of clothes tightly, and I was sweating heavily. I sat at my desk, opened one of the drawers, put the bundle in and then locked it shut, as if I would never open it again. For some obvious reasons, this simple and very quick ceremony led me to another ceremony, where I was surrounded by the voices of Qur’an reciters and a great deal of earth and stones poured over the drawer. Someone had placed a tombstone without a name or date on my desk near a photo of Yacine at age twenty.