The Bottom of the Jar by Abdellatif Laabi Page B

eggs to the grocer. Having no choice, and with a heavy heart, he complied. How would the grocer react? Wouldn’t he just confiscate the eggs and blow the whistle on him? That was what he feared as he entered and repeatedly gave up his place in line until there was nobody left in the shop. Miraculously, though renowned for his avarice, the grocer reacted positively to the offer. Amused, the grocer looked at the little boy of pure Fezzi stock as he held out the eggs as if he were a peasant entering the Medina for the first time. He took the suspicious goods and in return handed Namouss a ten-cent coin – two douros. Hell, they were worth at least three times that! When Namouss caught up with his accomplices, they put their heads together and realized it would be difficult to split the sum equally between them. They therefore decided to use the coins to buy some sweets. Namouss went back to the grocer’s. The number ofsweets the grocer proposed to give him was considerably lower than the usual going price. The grocer had come out a winner on both ends.
    As they were about to part ways, Namouss was given the smallest share.
    â€œWe’re the ones who came up with the idea,” explained one his accomplices.
    Namouss wound up with two miserable, stuck-together sweets. Only once did he try to determine the extent of the catastrophe. Though he’d committed an unspeakable crime, it seemed only fair to call a spade a spade: He had stolen. A villainy that would lead him straight to hell, but above all a villainy in the eyes of his family. Driss would never forgive him, that is if he could even conceive that one of his children could ever commit such an act.
    Tears welled up in Namouss’s eyes. In a fit of rage, he threw the sweets into the gutter and ran home. It would take some time to get over this episode. He was obviously still too young to face the risks that freedom entails.

8

    T HE SUMMER HAD arrived, and contrary to all expectations, Namouss was not to remain in Fez.
    Sometime before the end of the school year, Ghita had come to the end of her tether, and, adopting the royal “we,” had begun to hammer home her demands.
    â€œWe are suffocating inside these four walls. Home, always at home . . . How can we get out of this house? Wait until the day we get carried out feetfirst? Regardless of age, we’re all tired and need to ‘feast our eyes’ and experience the world.”
    Driss dithered for a while, claiming that it was too hot and that it was a vital time of year for his business. All in vain. He soon resigned himself to the idea of a trip, but only for a week, he insisted, and not a day more.
    Word got out and, thrilled by the news, Namouss started daydreaming. He imagined himself aboard one of those vehicles he had seen in his textbook. Oh, neither boat nor plane. That was beyond hisimagination. Just a car or a bus. A red car, actually, one as big as the house, which would take him . . . where? He hadn’t the vaguest idea.
    Driss came to the rescue. He announced that they would sojourn in Sidi Harazem, a spa town a few kilometers from Fez.
    The big day finally arrived and the family made their way to Bab Ftouh, where there were a number of vehicles for hire. Instead of the longed-for car, Driss set his heart on a coutchi (horse-drawn carriage), a type of conveyance that was both cheaper and a more respectable way of traveling, especially with wife and daughters in tow. That would circumvent the lack of privacy one found in cars. The entire family piled into the carriage, along with a mattress, duvets, kitchenware, tagines, a brazier, and baskets of provisions. A real uprooting.
    The coachman was having trouble getting the old nag – Abdelwahab – going. Namouss was entertained by this last detail, since the Egyptian singer, who bore the same name as the horse, had become an idol to most Fezzis. Women above all were ensnared by his voice, which had a sweet languor