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  INFIDELS

  A Novel

  Abdellah Taïa

  Translated by Alison L. Strayer

  Seven Stories Press

  NEW YORK / OAKLAND

  Copyright © 2012 by Abdellah Taia

  English translation © 2016 by Alison Strayer

  First English-language edition May 2016

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

  Seven Stories Press

  140 Watts Street

  New York, NY 10013

  sevenstories.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Taïa, Abdellah, 1973-

  [Infidèles. English]

  Infidels : a novel / Abdellah Taïa ; translated by Alison L. Strayer. -- Seven Stories Press first edition.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-60980-680-4 (hardcover)

  1. Mothers and sons--Fiction. 2. Morocco--Social conditions--Fiction. I. Strayer, Alison L., translator. II. Title.

  PQ3989.2.T27I6413 2016

  843’.92--dc23

  2015029678

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  I. Soldiers

  II. For Love

  III. Infidels

  IV. God

  I. Soldiers

  1

  Nobody will come, maman.

  You know it, maman. It’s too late. Or too early. The men don’t come here anymore, and you know it. You know it. Isn’t that true? Stop insisting, I don’t want to do it anymore. Don’t want anything to do with that ritual. We’ve been waiting a very long time. It’s over. It’s over. The last time we met up with a monster. He wanted to devour me. He did strange things to me. I told you. Remember? No? Really? Come on, we’re going home. We’re leaving, maman . . . We’re leaving. The streets are empty, no one will see us, hurl insults and stones at us. And if anyone spits at you, I’ll fight. I’ll defend you. I won’t run away. I’ve grown up. I can see I’ve grown up. I’ve learned to spit at people, too. Deep inside I remember everything. I’m not looking for trouble, but now if someone looks at me with evil eyes, eyes that cast spells, I know what to do. I spit. I stand my ground.

  I don’t look down, I face them down. I spit. I spit at all those people who despise us and pretend not to know you, maman. I spit. I spit. I spit with all my heart and soul. I spit as far as I can at the feet of my enemy and attacker, the bastard who won’t let it drop but calls after me with his cheap remarks, his tight-ass religious moralizing. I aim far, maman. I aim at the place where my attack will drive its point home. I inhale hard through my nose. I rake the bottom of my throat. I bring up all the half-dried snot from my nostrils onto my tongue. I hawk up all the filth from my lungs and mix it in my mouth with saliva. I get a big wad ready. I build up momentum. I attack. I launch my nuclear weapon. My gob of spit is so heavy, so sophisticated, it takes a while to land and explode in the face of my enemy, our enemies, maman. It’s like in Captain Majid cartoons. The action happens in slow motion. My spit is suspended in midair. It’ll stay that way forever. In the air. A serious threat to anyone who insults you, maman. I’ll kill them all, blow them to pieces, pulverize them, wipe them off the face of the earth, of this world, this endless night, just with what comes out of my nose.

  They say I’m dirty. You’re dirty. I am the son of a dirty woman. The son of dirty Slima.

  You’re not dirty, maman. My Slima. I know that. You’re not dirty. I swear to you. I swear.

  Do you believe me?

  You have to believe me.

  I really know how to spit. Want me to prove it? I can. Right now. Spit all the way to that power pole. Do you want me to? I can.

  You say nothing.

  Spitting doesn’t make me bad. Badly brought up. I was different from the start. Right from the beginning. Let me spit, and prove to you I’ve grown up. Let me show you how I can protect you.

  Look at me. Look. Look.

  You don’t like me this way . . . Don’t worry. I’m growing up, but I’ll never disown you. I understand. I accept. We don’t have to change. This is how we are. How you are. Maman. Slima. I’m your son. Forever your son. Small, big, young, old, I’m your son.

  I want to spit.

  Let me. Let me.

  It’s what they deserve. All of them.

  I spit on Samir and his mother. I spit on Hlima and his whole family. I spit on Youssef, Rachid, Fattah, Salim, and all the others. Friends from before. I spit on the whole soccer team of the El-Oued Khanez quarter and the team in Hay al-Inbiâth too. I spit on this city, Salé, and everyone who pretends they don’t know you. I spit at the imam. I don’t like him. He’s a two-faced coward—dirty, very dirty. I don’t want you to let him come to our house anymore. No more. Besides, he doesn’t pay well. I spit in his face three times, no, five, the damn imam who can’t even pray properly. They should send him back to primary school! He’s ignorant. He needs to learn everything again. I spit at him hard, hard. I don’t want you to see him again, not ever, maman. We don’t need him, or his money, or his religion.

  I spit at the neighbor Aisha and the black skillet she’s hung in her ground floor window for so long. You can see it all the time from our house—that skillet, that curse. A year ago, you told me the meaning of the skillet, the message Aisha wants to send by hanging it there. Day after day and year after year, with the blackened skillet, so very black, she’s been saying, “This is what you’re worth, Slima, old slut. This is what I wish for you, to be burnt alive over the flames in this scorched pan! For you and your son to go to the Blackness forever, and soon! To be cursed forever in hell, on earth and in the Hereafter . . .”

  I’m amazed. In the last few months, you haven’t been fighting with Aisha. You gave up. She didn’t. The black skillet is still there. A permanent insult. A constant reminder of our status in Hay al-Inbiâth. For the tens of thousands of people around us, we deserve our pariah status, our grim fate, because we do nothing to change it, break out of it. Maman, one day you’ll be stoned to death by the very same people who creep to the house each night to ask for your forgiveness and a bit of pleasure.

  You’re dead. You don’t exist anymore. You’re evil. I’m the son of evil, of sin. That’s what Aisha-the-curse calls me, “Son of evil.” She always tells me to stay away from her two sons, not touch them or play with them. She says, “keep your evil to yourself and your mother Slima!” But I like her sons, and they knew everything about evil long before they met me. They’re not afraid of evil.

  Yes, I’m surprised. You have no more desire to fight Aisha or any other witch. Why? Can you tell me? Why? I’m growing. I may still seem small to you, but I’ve grown, Maman. Look at me. Look at me. I can fight for you. Avenge you. Spit day and night at Aisha and all the others, your “eternal enemies,” you often say.

  You’re not answering. Why?

  Are we going to wait here long? Until when? No one’s coming. They don’t come here anymore. They don’t pass this way. Foreign men don’t know our neighborhood now. They all go live in the Hay Salam district. That’s where you’ll have to go looking now, to lure them, talk to them, negotiate with them. Sing. Dance. Take off your clothes. Do you want us to go there? Do you need my help? Yes? No? Yes?

  You’re still not answering.

  I’m tired of waiting. We’re going back. We’re going back, maman. I don’t know if it’s day or night. I don’t know. I want to spit, spit, spit. I feel it coming up. You don’t want me to, is
that it? Maman. Answer, maman! Answer. Are you with me? Where are you?

  The desire to live is slipping away. You feel it, like me. You see it, like me. And still you do nothing. You bring me here and we wait. But they don’t come to this hammam now. They’re all in Hay Salam. That’s where we have to go. Away from those people who know us too well, know everything about you, more than I do—those people, those neighbors who look right through me. I can’t stand it anymore. Let’s go someplace else, maman. Let’s go to Hay Salam and start over, from the beginning. I’m sure people will be nicer there. I’m sure.

  Say something.

  Do you hear me? Have you heard of Hay Salam? It’s the new trendy area in Salé. I already love the name. Hay Salam. Salam. Peace. Peace at last, Maman. What do you think?

  Say yes. It’ll be good. A place where nobody knows you, yet. Say yes.

  Say something! Talk!

  I’m going. I don’t want to wait here. The men are gone. They don’t want me anymore here. The hammam’s too dark and dirty. It’s haunted. Old. All the nice Berber masseurs who worked here returned to their village in the back of beyond, near Taroudant. The watchman got sick. The bodies here aren’t how they were before. They don’t speak anymore, they’ve retreated into fear and solitude. Maman, we have to go. No one sees me here anymore. In just a year, I went from one hammam to the other. I assure you, I don’t miss the women’s side at all. A year isn’t enough to learn to be a teenager, enter all those dramas cold, no transition. It wasn’t easy on the men’s side, with tall hairy strangers, terrifying and rarely gentle. You pushed me to do all that, cross that border, just let it happen. I trusted you. We came here. We waited. We found them quickly, very quickly. We even had plenty of choice. Men the way you like them. Docile. Strangely shy. You approached them. You spoke softly. You always knew the right words to pull them in, soften them up. Bring them to their knees.

  “Sir, sir, please, could I entrust my son to you? To wash with you in the hammam? Would that be possible? My son’s a nice boy. And I’m alone, without a man. This little boy is all I have. He’s well-behaved, you’ll see. Could you do that? Are you sure? It’s not a nuisance? Everything is in this little bag. Everything. Cadum Shampoo. Black soap. Ghassoul. A glove for scrubbing. A small towel. A big towel. Clean clothes. And two tangerines. One is for you . . . Are you sure you don’t mind? Sure? All right. Here are the 5 dirhams for the entrance fee. Here. Here, please, sir. I insist, I insist . . . You’re already doing me a favor, taking him in, looking after him in the hammam. Here. Take the five dirhams. Here . . .”

  They never took the money. They knew very well they’d be paid in another way later.

  “Then come to my home after the hammam, for couscous. You’ll come? My little boy will show you the way. Couscous . . . It’s the least I can do . . .”

  I always did as you told me. But I didn’t like all the men you chose for me, and later for yourself. At first I couldn’t care less. It’s not like that now. I think we went through all the men of Hay Al-Inbiâth, maman.

  Maybe I should go to the hammam alone this time. To this hammam, alone and for the last time.

  I’m big.

  Ten years old is big, isn’t it?

  What are you thinking about?

  Do you want to know what happened inside with those men, before we arrived at the house for couscous? Do you want to come in with me this time?

  Shall I tell you everything?

  You already know everything about men?

  I doubt it, maman, I doubt it.

  Let me go. Let me go alone. The men are all gone. They’ve disappeared from this world, from this night without borders. They no longer exist here, on this side, with us, for you, for me. Give it up, maman.

  Go, go, go home. Sleep. Forget. And wait for me. I’ll come back a new person, stronger, smarter. I won’t be your son anymore. I’ll be your brother, your little brother.

  I’ve been here in this boat with you from the beginning. I’ll never leave you. We’ll ride together till the end. Sing and dance. Love and sleep. Still eat, in spite of everything. Together all the way to God. Until the Last Night. All the way to paradise. We’ll climb the stairs of heaven. I’ll help you. I’ll carry you. When you’re old, I’ll still be there for you, though everyone, all the others have cast you out. I’ll talk to God, He will forgive us. God already accepts us as we are. He made us this way. In this condition. In this situation. We accept His decisions. We listen to His voice. You hear Him too, don’t you?

  Every night, he tells me to watch over you.

  Every night, God loves us a little more.

  The others crush us, prevent us from seeing the light; more and more, they shut us into a hell they first invented for themselves. But He, God, Allah, is not them, isn’t like the image they made of Him.

  God is in me. He’s also in you. You’re the one who gave me God. I know you also give Him to others, the men who come to our house, sleep at our house, eat with us, get undressed and dressed again at our house. You’re the one who sees Him, more than me. Much more.

  Do you hear me?

  Do you understand me?

  Are you with me?

  Go home. Start getting ready for the move. We’ll take only the essentials. Our clothes. Especially our clothes. We’ll even take the most ragged ones that should be thrown in the trash. We won’t give them to the poor or to strangers. They’re our souls, you told me one day, young and old, in succession.

  We’ll keep our souls, maman.

  Put them in green bags. Open the windows. Look at the sky. It’s black, but that’s just how it looks. The sky isn’t black. We only see it that way.

  Look at the sky for a long time, maman. It’ll break open in the end. Explode.

  I’ll be back soon.

  I’ll be back soon.

  I’ll go back to the hammam alone. For the first time, alone. I’ll get undressed. Take everything off. I’ll be naked. Naked. NAKED. I’ll be alone and naked. In the middle room, I’ll scrub my own back. I’ll blacken my own body with traditional soap. And I’ll wait until the Angel without religion comes to cleanse me, give me new life. A new name.

  For the last time, I’ll remove the dirt from my body. My dead skin. My odors that have offended you for a year now. My nails that grow too quickly. Again and again, with no shampoo, I’ll pour very hot water over my head. I won’t be afraid. I’ll hide my trembling deep inside. I’ll stifle it. From now on, it would be indecent to let my fears and horrible images overwhelm me. Soon, hair will grow out of my body. Short hairs, soon very long. I know the process. I know how quick it will be. The hair on my body will take us to a new phase, a new era, maman.

  You don’t believe me?

  Try. Look at me. I’m your son. The son of Slima. Better than a son. You’ve told me everything. I’ve seen everything. I know your body by heart. I know how your skin moves, how it changes. Your voices are familiar. Your angels. Your djinns are my friends.

  You have to let me go. Let me enter the hammam alone. Catch my death and my life. Leave childhood. And always, always be with you, by your side.

  I promise. I swear.

  I’m all you have, maman.

  You’re all I have, Slima.

  I’ll be another person, yours forever.

  They’ll pass through. Only pass through. Men of all ages. Sorcerers. Bad guys. Friends. Parents. Police. Politicians. Madmen. They all end up leaving. Freedom with you is not to their taste. It scares them. They don’t know how to play. They don’t want to let themselves go anymore. They don’t like me. Apart from the muezzin and the postal official, none of them has ever looked at me.

  We have to go. Maman. Maman Slima. We have to leave this place.

  Hay Salam isn’t far. But the sky is different there; the air is different.

  The men are new.

  There’s a vege
table market every day.

  Our past won’t exist in Hay Salam. We’ll write it the way we want to. Another story.

  Our hammam there will be the Al-Baraka. It just opened. It exists. It has a more or less secret part, a family hammam. The whole family naked without shame, there together to change skin and even change sex. A hammam where we can both go. With everyone’s blessings. You and I. We’re a family, just you and me. That tradition has finally been imported here. I’m told it has been around a long time in other places. Fez. Wazzane. Meknes. Isn’t that right, maman? You knew that, didn’t you? Was it like that in your first country, Rhamna? Yes? No?

  You don’t want to answer.

  You’re being stubborn.

  You don’t want to let your clients down. To be adrift again, starting all over. Hungry. Panhandling. Working as a maid for the rich, the ruthless bourgeois.

  I promise that won’t happen, not now. I’m here. Hay Salam is rich. You won’t have to suffer from competition. We won’t have enemies. Aisha and her black skillet will be a just a bad memory. I’ll grow up more free. I’ll spit somewhere else. Never in front of you. I owe you that.

  You’re still young.

  You’re beautiful.

  That is your fate.

  Our fate.

  I know it. I see that fate. I have to force it on you. I’m only ten. I’ve already been through a lot with you.

  Your sounds. Our rituals. I’m not just ten. I’ll talk from now on. I’ll ask questions. You’ll never have to reply.

  Go home. Go home, maman.

  Drink a glass of wine if you want. It’ll revive you, warm you, help you listen to me, understand me at last. Let me go. See me for what I am.

  I just turned ten.

  The age of manhood.

  It’s like in the Egyptian movies on television. But this is reality. Moroccan reality. Hard. Bitter. Ruthless.

  Ten, maman. A man, maman.

  People won’t forgive me anything now. They’ll stop saying, “it’s not his fault!”

  The judgments are only just beginning. You can’t protect me anymore. Scream for me. Fight with people to save me. Give and take blows for me.