The Dhakir of the Village

A story by SALIHA HADDAD

It was a gloomy day and everyone in the village could barely move—almost everyone.

The old man awoke early, as always, but usually, he stayed in his home until there was clear light in the sky. That day was different, though. A day that rarely came up for him. And as such, he was unable to stay in. It was indeed a wonder that he slept at all after receiving the news from the imam on his worn-out Nokia at 2:39 a.m.

Taken by a strong urge and impatience and not bothered by having to be accompanied by his walking stick, he paced the main road that cut the mountainous village into two parallel halves several times. He passed the village’s mosque, whose sole indicators of being a religious site were the two perched loudspeakers on its roof, and the sign that read with black italic letters on a white font, Lǧameε n Taddart, long before its other inhabitants started to show up. Their faces bore a look of sickness, their bodies retrenched on themselves, and their steps too heavy—an appearance that contrasted with his. And though he tried to hide that contrast by attempting to squeeze the feelings of morbid enthusiasm inside him, it was in vain. His countenance glowed too visibly for that.

After going up and down for hours and watching the other villagers passing him by without saying Azul—hello—or even looking at him sometimes, he finally decided to stop. He stepped by the side and stood across from the mosque. He wanted to enter but changed his mind when he saw a group of people heading into it, deciding to wait for them to come out first. He preferred to bear the reticence of the passersby than to face the angry looks of those inside the dwelling of God, which, in its smallness, fit in well with the narrowness of their Kabyle village where it was newly built to accommodate its population after they complained of having to walk for almost a half hour to the nearby village’s mosque.

When he realised that his wait might be long, and to pass the time, the old man fetched out a filthy, weathered notebook from one of the large pockets of his oversized blue-navy fishermen’s jacket, which, rather than giving him the extra bulkiness he hoped for, made him look smaller and frailer. He lifted the notebook close to his eyes, but before opening it, he looked sideways to make sure no one could steal a glance. Once confident no one was near, he tried to flip through the pages. Sweet happiness started to mount inside him as he tried to reach the words he sought. Alas, he was too slow as reading each word took so much effort from him.  And to make his struggle to decipher his writing even worse, he heard someone calling him from down the road.

“Aaah, Si Mohend.”

It was the young man Hamza who relentlessly teased him about his notebook and secretly held  on to it by saying things like, “Are you hiding gold and diamonds?” or “Are the numbers of all your girlfriends in there?”

The old man frowned, rushed to close it, and put it back in his pocket. He made sure to guard the notebook from everyone but in particular from this young man who, one day— not long ago— had tried to snatch it away when he held it in one hand, looking for change in his pocket to pay the minibus driver with the other. It was an incident that still burned him with rage when he remembered it. It made him hold a bit of a grudge against the well-meaning but playful young man.

“Are you going in?” Hamza asked, motioning to the mosque when he reached him.

The old man noticed that Hamza, too, was in a morose state ,where usually he had so much energy to spare.

“I am waiting to be called in,” the former answered with a dignified tone.

Hamza turned around to leave but was stopped when three of his friends came out of the small structure.

“Now I get it,” Hamza said to himself. “Come over here,” he called his friends.

 They refused as he expected.

“It’s not the day to hold grudges. Come over here in the name of his beautiful soul, now resting with the creator.” 

Upon hearing those last words pronounced with such gravity, they walked over to him, reluctant and without looking at his neighbour. He knew all too well why they avoided his gaze, but it made no difference to him. As far as he was concerned, it was for something he believed to be right about in spite of everyone’s protests and judgments—loud or quiet. 

They all stood there silent for a few minutes when the old man, without warning, crossed the road furtively despite his age and entered the mosque. At its entrance, he slipped off his shoes and stood there, thinking about the man and the incident––the one that happened last year, almost around this same time; in summer. He was ambling up a side path from the nearby village when he saw the man, a veteran from the same village as his, suspended in the air by a rope tied to a strong branch of an old olive tree on the high hill by his right side. The sight hadn’t frightened him, nor did it surprise him at the time, just like it didn’t stir him to climb towards the man. Instead, he contemplated him for just a few minutes, then resumed his slow walk until he met three young men running in his direction—the same ones still standing outside now, across from the mosque. 

They had asked him if he’d seen the man. 

He had motioned to the still visible hill without uttering a word.  

They rushed there. 

A few days later everyone in the village and basically in the whole Kabylia region heard about what had happened. About what the medical examiner who inspected his corpse said––that the man could have been saved if only the young men had arrived a few minutes earlier. Information that made them deeply saddened and  guilty despite everyone’s efforts at comforting them. As well as complimenting them on their efforts to keep the village safe by forming a vigilante group to look out for any possible wildfires in any one of its many surrounding forests during the summer. Efforts that made them see the suicidal man with one of their binoculars, and rush immediately to stop him even though they arrived late—making sure at least his body remained untouched by the big crows.

It was the first time the old man thought about him or the incident that left all his fellow villagers indignant. They confronted him about his lack of action but mostly his refusal to attend the funeral. Nonetheless, he held firm—it was customary for everyone to attend funerals just as much happier occasions in the village except for very compelling reasons. He believed and still believes the spirit of the man was unworthy of saving or being prayed over, let alone being praised and remembered.  And he said as much to them to their great dismay and anger.

“Unlike this man,” he murmured to himself, willingly cutting the thread of his thoughts before joining the imam—a young man still from the south of the country who speaks perfect Kabyle after he learned much of his profession in the biggest mosque in the region—inside the place of worship to know more of the tragic event and talk about the coming funeral. 

When they finished their talk about half an hour later, the old man headed straight back to his house, which stood on the furthest corner of the main road. It was the only dwelling that remained, for the most part, untouched but well-kept. The house was built in the old Berber way with mud; he inherited it from his father. It had only two rooms—one he used as a kitchen and the other bedroom. While he used a small space, he built himself with metal planks as a toilet, washed it, and bathed it in his room. The only part of the house he left unused was its fairly large backyard.

Once there, he changed from his jacket, white t-shirt, black pants and shoes to a white qamis, then dozed off, sleeping for a while before waking up to a loud sound of weeping. The sound came from nowhere in particular but from everywhere as if it were the walls of his room crowded with hadiths and adiyah volumes and collections, which were crying. At first, the sound startled him, but he soon gathered his exhausted body and stood up. He went straight to an empty bucket, filled it with clean water from a bottle, and then performed his ablutions calmly. After this, he laid out his praying mat in the direction of the qibla to pray away the weeping that still didn’t have a clear source. It didn’t take long; he did his prayers only for a while before it ceased.  But soon after, the old man took over when he started crying uncontrollably.  

*

The banging was loud.

“You fucking wake up ay azgar—brainless bull.”

After a while, the boy surrendered, and opened the iron door, shaking.

The man standing in front of him was raging.

Sometime later, he found his hands tied tightly with a rope and being dragged in the direction of the Soummam River. The place no one dared approach in the rainy winter days. But there he was, being pulled like a goat by a raging man—the one he called father. And as they approached the river, the boy could hear its frightening fury. Menacing. He was aware a day like this could and would come since he learned the truth from his loving aunt, who was about to travel to Syria permanently two years ago when he was only twelve. A day he saw nearing in the looks of his mother, of his grandmothers too. He saw in the eyes of his mother, of his grandmothers too––the day had come. 

“Go into the river and cleanse yourself.” 

His father said with a mean, knowing look in his eyes when they arrived at the river. He was standing dangerously on its bank with the end of the rope with which he dragged the boy in his callous right hand. While the latter was on his knees, dirty all over with mud. He was looking at the gloomy sky, thinking about God and crying. Not praying or even imploring to be saved from being hauled to or thrown into a certain death and just contemplating God,crying.

His father waited a few moments, then repeated his sentence.

“Rebbi–God—won’t hear you. You are as equally filthy as your mother,” he added.

Next, he let go of the rope, made a movement to go towards him, but as soon as he moved, his leg slid and he fell in the river. 

It took only a few seconds, and he was gone. The boy didn’t move to try to save him. He didn’t even budge. He remained on his knees instead, still thinking of God, still crying.

No one had the slightest hope that he would be back alive, so when his family—mother, grandmothers, six older sisters, and some concerned neighbours gathered at their home—saw him, they thought it was a miracle. However, they all refrained from saying anything. They didn’t ask him about his father either. He didn’t say. The boy remained mute for a few days until he announced to his mother.

“I am going to be a Dhakir—remind people of God.”

She was somehow not surprised by his decision so didn’t debate or comment on it. But seized the chance and asked, “What happened?”

He told her how his father died.. 

She felt slightly sorry but for the boy only.

“They found his body this morning. I was going to tell you later on. The French believe it was an accident. We will have to organise his funeral.” she added that last sentence with a tone of relief. 

“I won’t attend it.” 

“You have to. You are his only son.”

Upon hearing that last bit, the boy looked her hard in the eyes, making her dismiss the question she had on the tip of her tongue: Did you attempt to save him? unasked and announced on her turn.

“I released all the animals: the chickens, the goats, the sheep, cows and bulls. I can no longer sustain looking at them. If anyone brings back any of them, tell them we don’t want them. To take them if they want.”

*

The old man stopped crying, folded back his praying mat and placed it against a wall. He got dressed and went out again. He headed down the now empty road without the same morbid enthusiasm he had in the morning, but this time more controllable, and as soon as he was about to reach the mosque again, his mother’s memory started to invade his thoughts. He wondered how many of her days before he was born were marked with blood. And if they were always red. Sometimes strictly with her blood when not with his sisters’ as well. And he wondered how many of their slaughtered livestock animals she had to clean. He remembered that there were many.  It was during a time of war. A time when food was more than scarce, but somehow, they had meat. Meat his father tried to donate some to their fellow villagers, but they almost always refused. And upon his insistence sometimes and saying that it was for God’s sake, they rolled their eyes at his justifications by using the name of God and soiling it. At his attempts to hide his earthly greed with heavenly invocation. They knew he snitched for the French. They knew he was a night’s agent for them. And they knew he raised most of the domestic animals they provided for their consumption. Something that stained the old man—the Dhakir of the village who came to know about it only after his funeral had passed later on. Though the people in the village, and their children and grandchildren later on, never brought it up to him after learning the manner of his father’s death.

Then he remembered one particular Friday. His father had ordered his mother, after his routine of beating her until bleeding, to slit the biggest chicken and prepare it for dinner. Without saying why as he was also in the room, before leaving to the weekly souk. So she took the blade, with her wounds still unattended to, and went to the backyard where the animals were kept.  There she chose the biggest chicken indeed, asked him to stop following her in step, then stood in the middle of the backyard, in the cold wind that played violently with the lonely thin dress she was wearing and with her untied uncovered long hair, not because of the way she slit the poor chicken; angrily it made large blots cover her tiny face and frame and mingle with her own. But because soon after, she threw the animal to the ground and brought the blade to her throat, stopping only when she saw one of his sisters running towards her, crying to stop her. While he remained in his place. He didn’t try to save her. He just stood there watching her soft features going against the deep harshness of the landscape, of her husband and of her life. 

*

When he felt too weak to bear the sun’s intense rays, he took shade under a tree on the side of the road. There, he overheard a group of boys, who probably went out when their parents weren’t looking or were taking a nap, under another nearby tree, talking and pointing at him.

“He brings death everywhere he goes,” One of them said.

“No, my father told me he became a Dhakir because he wanted people to forget some old family secret sins.” 

“I am not talking about that. But because he loves funerals.”

“Not all of them,” a third said in a manner that indicated that he was the boss of the group.

The old man was amused at their talk about their smartness. He would have taken offence if it were adults who were voicing them. 

“They will never understand,” he mumbled to himself, then looked at the sky and thought about God.

*

After a religious festival at the village’s holy place near by the side of the main cemetery where the old man performed praises of God and reminded people to mention his name, the imam—still new to the village and noticing his enthusiasm for certain funerals—approached and asked him why he loved to attend certain burials more than others.

“They are good people, so naturally, I want to be there for them”, he answered rather honestly.

“How do you know they are good?”

“Through love.”

Unconvinced, the imam added another question,

“And why did you become a Dhakir?”

“I hope for the same reasons you became an imam.” He answered him.

Indeed, he measured the deceased by how much people loved them loudly and quietly—just like the man whose funeral now was fast approaching—while he dismissed attending the funerals of those who ended their lives on their own altogether.

*

When the Dhakir of the village noticed he would be unbothered as he was almost alone on the road, he took out his notebook again. And he went through it like he did earlier only this time he reached the words he was seeking. The name of a man. The name of the man his aunt revealed to be his real father. A man who had been a Dhakir in one of the many villages in the region before his untimely demise.