THE MOROCCAN DREAM

THE ANTHOLOGY OF FREEDOM

AN ANTHOLOGY OF MOROCCAN NEW SHORT STORY, VOLUME 3

The Bird & The Cage

-Short Story-

Written by Malika Serari

Translated by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani

“What is Freedom?

A slender poem

That I saw in the evening walking

Across the night,

Bleeding;

A puritan breath,

So gently

Resisting the thundering storms.

A song repeated on and on

On the weeping lips;

A throb

Murdered Thousands of times;

And out of its ashes,

There it comes to life again and again”…

Malika Serari

Moroccan poetess and short-story writer

Born in Casablanca, Morocco

Author of:

"Morning Has Stolen My Mother’s Childhood"

(Collection of poems),

"Shivers From Night’s Coat”

(Collection of short stories) in 2008.

I stopped before the cage seller in order to buy my son a bird in a cage and fulfil the promise that I gave him after his passing the exams.

I do not know why I chose to buy the cage first.

Perhaps, because I feared there should be an abrupt increase in cage prices with all this population explosion.

In fact, cage customers were queuing up in such a long line. Each one of them needed a cage to lodge in. So, I had to take my place in the queue although I noticed that the customers in the queue outnumber the cages available. However, I thought that the seller might join us in the same cage and leave us to fend for ourselves. I also thought that he might have further cages spared for the black market.

I knew that this would cost me a lot but I kept my place at the end of the queue. The important thing was to get a cage. As for the bird, I will get it later on.

The new cages were multi-coloured and I had to check my son’s preferences. I knew that he was faithful to his football club colours. Of course, the space within the cage would not allow the slightest roll of any ball. However, when my turn came, I found myself in front of the only cage left and I had no other choice than to pick it up, leaving no chance for the other customers waiting in the queue behind me.

Before taking the cage, I had to make sure of the safety of its bars. I asked one of the ladies standing behind me in the queue to share it with me by dividing it with a horizontal barrier so that it looks like a building made of two cages, with each one of us in his own flat after drawing lots with prior consent that none of us should ever walk within with his head up as the roofs are too low.

At first, the idea seemed great but before signing the partnership contract, the seller raised the cage price abruptly.

We started protesting but he tried persuading us that the barrier which the lady and I will be building to separate us from one another would need a clandestine licence as any slum did and this would cost him further expenses.

He swore that he had nothing to gain from this business except for a tip. This meant to both of us that he aims at snatching out of this transaction further money to buy a café as small as a cage.

Although my lady partner and I consented to build the barrier, my husband, who was against the cage from the very beginning, objected to being involved in a joint cage and asked me to keep for myself the total ownership of the cage. He even rejected joining me on the contract as a partner because of his sensitivity to cages. He has been imprisoned for two years and he knows very well the worlds of the cursed cages to which the sun itself refuses to pay a visit. That is why he left his share of the cage to me.

I felt a great enthusiasm to pass my ownership of the cage to my son but I feared that he should some day leave me to live in it with my neighbours’ daughter.

I thought carefully and expressed to my lady partner my sorrow at my willingness to keep the full property of the cage for myself, following my husband’s demand.

The birds’ songs coming out of the store sounded so sad and I asked the seller about the price of the birds.

He said:

- How could you buy a bird that you have not seen yet?

I answered:

-Sometimes, beauty comes straight to the ears.

The jailer showed me some of his prisoners’ civil state. Some of them were prisoners of conscience or of no conscience at all. Some others were victims of accusations that they have not yet committed.

The jailer advised me to keep away from prisoners of conscience. As for the other prisoners, he recommended that I should deal with them carefully. He even warned me against the innocent ones as they have been converted into real criminals by just been accused.

I was astonished at a seller who prevented me from buying any of the birds jailed in the store. I was more astonished to think over the money that he had spent on feeding and watering all this huge number of birds. I believed that his tender heart turned into a dwelling for these birds, getting rid of the logics of gain and loss.

I wanted to know more about the subject but he sneered at me and made it clear that his birds often got into such hunger strikes but he interferes to feed them only when their lives are in danger. He told me that he was highly experienced in the field as he had worked as an executioner in a clandestine concentration camp where he has developed an acute perception of the accurate time that Death chose to set foot in the prison.

Once again, I found myself clarifying that what I need is a mere bird for a cage that I bought from him minutes ago.

The seller showed me two birds: the first one, a parrot which had been involved in repeating out mottos and slogans the meaning of which he had never known. He even used to say every insult he would hear right to his owner who chopped his tongue off. The parrot, however, got a whistle that whenever the jailer heard it, he would feel the danger of seeing floods of prisoners flowing along from the neighbouring prison quarters to show their sympathy.

That was the first bird that the seller pointed out to me with his forefinger. The second one had his feathers plucked off and his wings scissored short although a small layers of feathers were making their way to cover his body up. I felt such a great sympathy towards him that I almost took off my clothes to wrap him up with. However, my clothes were smaller in size and I had to offer, instead, a bigger piece of cloth that I had earlier made as a carpet within the cage. Sarcastically, he looked at me, making me feel utterly weak and naked.

My son admired a bird wearing a tee-shirt belonging to some football club. I thought that the bird might be a football player and I accused him of drug addiction since he belongs to a poor country. I also feared that the bird should distract my son and change his interest away from his studies.

The seller recommended that I should sell the tee-shirt to turn my son’s attention away from the bird. He confirmed that the bird would not object to my selling his shirt as he will be always in jail and that going from cage to cage needs changing the shirt on.

He also advised me not to oblige the bird to have his meal especially during hunger strikes so that he get used to having his meals in time. He even added that I had to give him the chance to express himself only when media comes to take official reports on the prisoners’ states.

I forgot that he equally reminded me to close my windows to prevent sunshine from whispering bad habits to their skins and to keep the voices of the other sex away. Otherwise, he will fly away and never come back again.

A brand-new question came into my mind:

-What about the adolescence that the bird is experiencing and that might urge him to revolt against the cage?

The seller, however, reassured me that his prisoners never know adolescence as he usually castrates the males and circumcises the females, a practice that he owed to his long experience as an executioner in torture centres.

The seller also added the possibility of my changing the bird bought by any other one in case he turns out to be too much of a bother.

In fact, these promotions dissuaded me from negotiating the price of the bird which was really expensive despite the fact that the bird was in a collective cage.

The seller inserted a long hook within the cage, trying to get the selected bird but in vain. The bird turned so skilful at dodging and dribbling that the seller was defeated. He paused to take his breath before trying again and again but in vain. He thought of inspecting his birds minutely.

On fulfilling his plan, a bird among the ex-prisoners of conscience stood up to greet the seller. The remaining birds attacked the cage door and flew away.

***********

* The writer, Malika Serari is a Moroccan poetess and short-story writer, Born in Casablanca, west of Morocco. She is the author of: " Morning Has Stolen My Mother’s Childhood " (Collection of poems), " Shivers From Night’s Coat " (Collection of short stories) in 2008.

*The translator, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23^rd 1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will" (A Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001, "Waiting For the Morning" (Short stories) 2003,"Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde" (Short stories) 2005, "The Season Of Migration to Anywhere" (Short stories) 2006, "The Three Keys: Freedom, Dream & Love" (An anthology of Moroccan New Short Story in Three Volumes) 2006-2007-2008, "The History of Manipulating Professional Contests in Morocco" (Syndical manifestos in Two Volumes) 2009-2011, "Death of the Author" 2010…

He is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading " (testimonies) , "Kais & Juliet" ( Novel) and ""When Photo Talks" (Photo-Autobiography).

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