The Start!

It was the start! It was really the start! The start of a long way to joblessness and carelessness. I started something that was supposed to be a job. I started, in fact, death –in- life in a bush called TANA. It was a barren land stretching away from the real life. People were walking sleepy all day long, longing for nothing but a drop of water to sweat their dry throats or to wash their daily sins.

   A teacher, full of energy and new ideas stuffed up in his little head by teacher-trainers who had never been in the bush, was riding an old coach towards death-in-life. “Maybe it is okay over there; maybe a change has visited the place,” my mother assured me. I looked in her sweaty eyes and said, “It was my decision, mum. Don’t worry I will be fine.” She knew it would not be the case. However, her words had really consoled me. I packed my stuff and I set on a journey to my death.

   After one hundred kilometers of driving, the coach started coughing and sneezing. It was an incurable disease that only the conductor was familiar with. The driver, a cigarette in his hand, stopped and tried to see what could be done. Astonished and sleepy, the passengers were looking at each other. It was about midnight. The landscape was so dark that nothing could be seen through the windows. The conductor asked people to keep their places because the coach would  leave in five minutes. I took my warm SIDI ALI and drank. I knew such games;minutes were usually hours, if not days. After one hour exactly, the old coach moved ahead.The conductor was smiling when getting on, proud to start the old shaky engine. Surely he would tell his boss tomorrow. He was not only a simple conductor but also a gifted mechanic. He knew that his preferred workers who were jacks-of-all-trades and greenhorns deceived on each paid day. He was now sure now that he was so important in this coach. Once on the move, I fell asleep, dreaming of the next life in TANA. All of a sudden, a passenger was yelling out “FIRE! FIRE! HELP!” the conductor woke up and asked the woman:

   “What’s up, woman?”

   “I smell something like fire,” she uttered fearfully.

   “Like fire! Where is this shit? I smell nothing, baby.”

   “It’s my cigarette maybe, Simo.” Shouted the driver from the front.

   “We can’t sleep in this damn cart, shit!”  Simo said nervously and went to his seat between the rows. He covered himself with a dirty blanket and started snoring noisily after a few seconds. The woman believed him, she covered her head and fell asleep.

At nine o’clock in the morning, the coach was ambling smoothly along a small bus station, an open place where nobody was on the scene. Simo was shouting to the passengers to get off.

   “Hurry up, be quick! The boss is waiting. We were late!”

   “To the hell with your boss” I whispered, holding my bag firmly in my hand

   “TANA is here. Did you hear me?” he said glaring at me.

   “I know! Be patient!” I said and got off to look for another adventure. A passenger did not find his bag and started shouting at the conductor face. Happy to be away from this damn coach, I made my way forward. In fact, I did not know where to go. I was like a fish out of water, bewildered by the noise and the smoke of the old engine. Three boys were playing near the bus station. One of them was throwing stones at a closed door and the other two were running after Hondas and motorcycles. They were really enjoying themselves. I approached the boy with stones.

   “Hello, boy” I said putting my hand on his right shoulder.

   “I got it, I really got it”

   “What?”

   “The door! The door!”

   “Why are you throwing stones at that door?”

   “I ‘m doing like the children on TV”.

   “Aha! But this is just a door!”

   “I know. It is better to play with the door and not with the white-helmeted people.”

   “Do you know a hotel here?” I asked him, changing totally the subject.

   “Over there! There!” He pointed to a house opposite the bus-station.

   He resumed his game happily. The house had two floors. New York hotel was written at the foot of stairs. The latter needed cleaning badly. When climbing up, I passed a woman lying right in the middle of stairs.

   “ This is my room, you know!”She said with a broad smile on her lips. I nodded to her .I did not dare to say a word. She looked a bit abnormal. Suddenly, a young man showed up at the top of the stairs. He was still yawning. I told him that I wanted a room. Without hesitating, he handed me a key and asked me to go to room five on the right corner. The woman was saying something to the young man with an accent I could not understand. The room was a bit small for me; the bed smelled bad, but I did not care a damn. Indeed, I was happy to lie down after a long boring journey. After a few minutes, I fell asleep. I dreamt of a woman hanged in an old gloomy room. I wanted to scream, but a robust young man hushed me immediately.

   “ Hush! Hush! It is not your business. What do you do here? OUT!”

   “I.“

   “OUT! I said!”

   When I opened my eyes, I heard somebody knocking at my door. I felt indisposed to open. The knocking got louder and louder. Fearfully I opened the door; it was the woman I saw in the stairs.

  “Can I help you, man?”

   “No, thanks. I don’t need any help at the moment!” I said with an angry voice. I wanted to shut the door, she did not move.

    “Just with ten dirhams, you can have your pleasure. I ‘m cheap, you know.”

With all my efforts, I pushed her out of my room, yelling crazily. “GO AWAY! SHIT!”

   Though she was very skinny, she was so powerful that I could not move her a bit. She was taller than me with long black hair. From her eyes, I could perceive the lost beauty. Indeed, either time or the hot weather effaced the ridges of her face long time ago. In her ragged clothes, she looked like a ghost, disgusting and fearsome. I kept shouting at her face but in vain. Much to my indignation, she spat at my face and pushed me backwards. All of a sudden, the receptionist showed up and pulled her out of my room. Obediently, she went out. I wanted to kick her, but the man intervened.

    “Be calm, mate. She is a bit mad. Close your door!”

    “ I’ll kill this bitch; she …”

   “You can do nothing. She is out of her mind. Sit down, I will explain everything.”

We both had a seat. I was not really in a good mood for listening to his story.

   “She was teaching here for two years. Last year she became mad. She could not bear life here. Her husband ….”

   “ That ‘s enough; I want to get some sleep, please!”

   “Okay, I ‘ll tell you more later. Bye!”

   At eight o’clock the following day, I was at school. I was lucky I did not meet the mad woman when going out. The weather was windy and stuffy. I did not know whether to wear or take off my woolly coat. Sensations of heat and cold were deep inside me. There were four slum-looking rooms on the right side and an empty space on the other side. “ Education for Everybody” was written on a small dirty board near the doorway. A man about seventy years old was approaching me. He was skinny and frail looking. His clothes looked rumpled and dirty. Politely, I introduced myself asked after the headmaster.

    “What? I can’t hear you!” He shouted.

   “The headmaster!” I said.

   “ What!” I deduced that he was deaf. I had to raise my voice to nearly a shout to be heard. When he got my message, he gave a broad grin.

   “Headmaster! Headmaster! I’ m a headmaster at the moment. The right one comes on Saturdays.”

   “ But I need him to show me my class and my house. I’ m going to work here, you know.” I said with a raise voice again.

   “Your class and your house ‘ll be one of these rooms.” He was pointing to the slums.

   “ Can I see them?”

   “This is always the same problem with new teachers. They are always the first to arrive and the first to leave. Okay, come to see your destiny.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “Nothing, boy. Follow me.”

   I followed him to one of the rooms. He just kicked the door and we were in. It was a large strange room with small tables all around. It was painted in a black gloomy colour so as not to get dirty easily. Students had managed to scratch their names on the black walls. Little dirty spots were seen here and there, which were maybe meant for decorations. What a decoration! A large blackboard was hanging on the front wall. A small desk and a frail-looking chair were in the right corner, opposite the door. “This is your class. Let’s see your house now!” The old man said. We both moved to the back of the class. The old man drew a black curtain that separated the tables from the other part of the room. There was a small bed next to the wall, covered with a greasy-looking blanket. It seemed to me that I was in a cave or a grave. I looked at the ceiling and I saw spiders welcoming my visit.

   The floor was draped with dust; four windows were blankly staring at me. No curtains and no glasses at all. Old food cans, cigarette butts and strips of paper were also part of the gloomy scene, singing maybe or honking to me to join in and play the dirty game. The lamps all around were shattered and sharp edges of plastic were hanging loosely from their sockets.

   “You have to get up early before they come in”, he advised me.

    I nodded and asked, “How long have you been here, father.”

   “ All my life maybe!” He said angrily.

   “ One piece of advice, boy. Don’t ask too many questions here because nobody will answer them. Try to be easy going and forget about your past as well as your dreams, you know.”

   “ When is the first day of the school year?”I asked loudly again.

   “ After one month maybe. It is too hot now for students to come to school. Anyway it is the headmaster’s decision. Go back and have a nice time in your city.”

    I left the old man and went out. At the doorway, two goats were gazing at me, wondering what I was doing around. My eyes went wide with terror. Was it the life I was going to have?

Was it an end to my dreams? Was my death so near? For a moment I tried to behave like a man, but it was too much for me. I burst into a wild cry just outside the Pyramid School. Tears poured down my cheeks and past my mouth. Fortunately, the street was as empty as usual. People were asleep or even dead!!! For all I could see, I was the only human being in this place; the last man left on the Earth.

    All of a sudden, the child with the stones showed up. He was singing softly to himself. Though it made no sense to me, the song seemed to be sad. His voice was high and thin, and his face was very serious, as if the song was really important. He had skinny arms and slim legs. He stopped singing when I was near him.

    “What are you singing, boy?” I asked.

   “A song of freedom. I am singing for them.” He said.

   “Who are they?”

   “ The children on TV. The children who had no time to neither sing nor dance. Always busy to free their land. I simply do it for them.”

   “Why?”

  “Why! Why! Are you a teacher at that school?” He just ignored my question and waited for an answer for his.

“Yes, I ‘ m a new teacher here. Do you go to school?”

“No, I help my father in the fields. I don’t like school…”

   He resumed his sad song and ran away without bothering to say good-bye. I really wanted to ask him further questions but he seemed to hate to be with a teacher. At the hotel’s doorway, the mad woman was sweeping the stairs .She kept staring when she felt my presence. In my room, I packed my stuff and I was out. There were a lot of people at the bus-station because it was the souk day. It was hot and I felt sweaty. The noise that pounded in from everywhere in the coach made it even hotter. I felt totally exhausted and dead on my feet. I hated the place; I hated being forced to work here; I hated giving up my dreams and I hated even more the feeling that there was nothing I could do about it.