Fatima sat on the chair to wait. She didn’t dare move. She stared at the wall facing her, at the mold stain that made the whole basement smell bad. Aïcha came back. She removed the towel, dropped it on the floor and gave a cry of disgust. There were so many lice that the white towel appeared almost black. “We’re never going to get them all like this. We’ll have to cut your hair.” Fatima stood up and screamed. She did not want her hair cut. She refused to let Aïcha touch it. She ran into the bathroom, shut the door, and locked it. Aïcha hammered on the door. She begged the maid to be reasonable. “It’ll grow back, you know, it’s not the end of the world.” But Fatima did not reply. She stayed there all evening and refused to open the door when Aïcha brought her some dinner. Mehdi was obliged to intervene. He ordered the maid to leave the bathroom. “You’re not a child—stop acting like one!” He threatened to call the police if she did not obey him. Finally the maid appeared, her eyes swollen from hours of weeping. She sat on the chair and watched as long strands of her hair fell to the floor.

  Once a month Fatima went home to the shanty town. As soon as she opened the door of the shack, her mother demanded money and Fatima handed over her wages. The mother licked the tip of her index finger and counted the notes in silence. She couldn’t read, but she certainly knew how to count. She arranged the banknotes into little piles, folded them in four, and stuffed them in her bra. Once, Fatima asked her what each pile was for and her mother replied: “None of your business. Just concentrate on working.” In the shanty town nothing changed: nothing in the landscape, nothing in the houses, nothing even in people’s conversations and habits. They brooded over the same problems, they suffered always with the same pains. Fatima understood then that this was what poverty was: a world that does not change. When wealthy, bourgeois, educated people met each other, they would always discuss what was new in their lives. Their daily existence could surprise them. They talked about the future and even revolution. They believed that change was possible.

  Sometimes Fatima’s mother would ask her about her employers’ house. What it looked like, what they ate. She wanted descriptions of their car, their bathroom. But the maid was incapable of describing anything in detail. What intrigued her were not furnishings, household appliances, or the bookcase overflowing with books. No, what she found strange, what frightened her, was the silence. That graveyard-like silence unbroken by the shrieking of children or the sound of rain on the corrugated-iron roof or women yelling insults at their neighbors. During the day, when her employers went out to work, Fatima found herself alone in the house. In that silence everything felt ominous. She had never realized before just how loud her life was. The sounds of her own body disturbed her. She startled at the smallest of noises. The rush of water in the onyx sink, the gurgling of the pipes, the roar of the imported refrigerator. The house was located in a chic residential neighborhood. Nobody walked in the surrounding streets. The only noise was the rumble of passing cars—big, beautiful cars—in which chauffeurs drove children to the French school. That silence tortured Fatima. On Sundays, Aïcha would lie down on the living room sofa, her feet resting in her husband’s lap, and the two of them would read. They didn’t even look at each other. Occasionally they would summon Fatima with a little bell that Mathilde had given them, and ask her to bring them refreshments. And Fatima would always wonder why reading made them so thirsty.

  Her employers always spoke French to each other, so Fatima did not understand anything they said. She tried to remember certain words: “quickly,” “spoon,” “goodbye.” She did not speak their language, but she was the first one to realize that Aïcha was pregnant. Her employer no longer ate anything at breakfast and sometimes she would leave work in the middle of the afternoon to come home for a nap. She started buying gherkins, which she would eat while standing in the kitchen, and she changed her brand of cigarettes. Fatima thought she would like looking after a baby. She would like it much more than she liked cleaning toilets and washing the paving stones in the garden. She would no longer have to spend her afternoons alone, moping in front of the television, listening to the king’s speech on the national broadcasting service without understanding a word he said. The king, too, spoke French sometimes. Fatima started dropping hints. One day she told Aïcha that she had two little brothers and a little sister and she had looked after them when they were babies. “I know how to raise children,” she boasted. But Aïcha wasn’t listening. “I can’t stay in the kitchen,” she told the maid. “The smell of meat makes me feel ill.”

  After three months Fatima thought perhaps she had been mistaken. What did she know about the lives of these people, after all? All that stuff about gherkins and cigarettes was none of her business. No matter how hard she stared at Aïcha’s belly, it remained as flat as ever. Her employer was on call at the hospital again, she no longer refused to accompany Mehdi to parties, and she was wearing the same clothes as before. Perhaps the baby is asleep, the maid thought. She remembered the old legend she’d heard so many times, about how the fetus, inside the mother’s belly, could be put to sleep by a magic spell. For months, even years, it would keep still, being born only when the mother felt ready to welcome it into the world. Fatima wished desperately she could talk to Aïcha about this. She would beg her: “Wake it up and I’ll help you look after it. You wouldn’t have to do a thing. You could go to work, and your husband too. I’d look after that child like it was my own.”

  When Amine gets out of bed, the sun is not yet up. The sky is barely light and on the grass a layer of frost crackles under his feet. Throughout the winter of 1974 he has suffered from insomnia. The country’s troubled situation has thrown him into a state of constant anxiety. In August 1972, one month after Aïcha’s wedding, there was another attempt to assassinate Hassan II. His Boeing was attacked in midair, but somehow the king survived. “A chance in a billion” was the judgment of the computer analysts after they had examined the bullet holes in the aircraft’s body. The king had survived odds of a billion to one. It was a miracle.

  Since then Amine has not been able to sleep. The simple act of lying down, resting his head on a pillow, puts him into a state of extreme nervousness. He has to do something. Produce. Invent. So he puts on a jacket, tugs a fur ushanka over his head and walks along the dirt path toward the orchard. The farm is deserted and he is suddenly overcome with a desire to crouch down on the frozen ground and roar like an animal. A yell to bring the panicked peasants running from their homes. “Get to work!” he would shout, and the women would rush toward the humid heat of the greenhouses, scarves in hand, their uncovered hair blowing behind them. The men, still barefoot, would pull on their boots while hopping forward.

  He has used several different foremen since Mourad’s death, but none of them have impressed him as being sufficiently hardworking or competent. They do not understand Amine’s ambition, or when they do understand, their eyes take on a shifty, envious gleam and Amine gets rid of them. I can do it all myself. I don’t need anyone else, he thinks, pacing up and down the rows of mandarin trees; the boss should always work harder and be better than his employees, if he wants to deserve what he harvests. He picks a mandarin from a branch, peels the fruit, then methodically eats it, one segment after another. He takes a small notebook from his pocket in which he notes, for each fruit, the number of pips he spits into the palm of his hand. It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t eaten anything else since the night before and that the mandarin’s acidity gives him a stomachache. If he wants to improve the variety, to one day produce seedless fruit, he has to keep doing this. Amine raises his jacket collar. He rubs his eyes. He’s sleeping so little that he’s started having visions. He talks with the dead and the missing. His son Selim, whose voice he heard on the telephone the previous spring. The boy called for Mathilde’s birthday, but it was Amine who answered the phone. And he just stood there, silent, petrified, despite his son’s desperate shouts on the other end of the line: “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?” By some strange irony, his son lives in America now, in the country that was once a source of inspiration to Amine. He had wanted to turn his own territory into a new California, he remembers. He also talks with Mourad, whose ghost glides over the estate and whose memory weighs on his heart with all the heaviness of remorse. Amine begs him for forgiveness, just as he begs forgiveness from his father, Kadour, who left him this land and who never got to see these trees in bloom. Amine walks across the field of almond trees, goes around the big warehouse, and comes to the whitewashed walls behind which are buried his brother Jalil and his mother Mouilala. He points his flashlight beam at his mother’s gravestone and, even though it is not a surprise, even though he has seen it several times before, his heart speeds up as he makes out the silhouette of a palm tree in the darkness. The tree has grown there, at the foot of the tomb, facing Mecca, and there is nothing, other than a miracle, to explain its presence. Amine moves closer, puts his arms around the trunk, and kisses the bark with his dry lips. It is the visible that is most mysterious, he thinks. Not ghosts and spirits and djinns, but trees and morning frost. Perhaps Mathilde was right. Perhaps he is going mad.

  More than ever he feels attached to this earth. His dead are buried in it and his own corpse, one day, will rot here. He is from here and he feels a fierce attachment to this domain, this country. Amine inherited it from his father and he would like his own son to inherit it from him, but he cannot compete with the vast world that has snatched his children away from him. Selim in New York, Aïcha in the capital. Can he blame them for wanting an easier life? When they were young, the few times when they didn’t want to do their homework, Mathilde would tell them: “You have to work if you want to succeed, if you don’t want to end up a farmer.” The nightmare of ruin and debt was followed by the nightmare of having no heir to take over the farm. The pain of that still gnaws at him. When he is dead and buried, another man will tread this earth, a stranger of whom he knows nothing and who will perhaps destroy it all. These thoughts obsess him and he does not understand what he has done to deserve such ingratitude. Sometimes he has the feeling that this land is cursed, that instead of welcoming and protecting those who live here, it forces them to flee. What did he do wrong? He committed so many sins. Worst of all, perhaps, his pride led him not to love those around him as well as he could have. When Selim was a little boy, they would sometimes arm-wrestle on the kitchen table and not once did Amine let him win. And yet he knew that winning would have filled his son with joy, that he would have jumped on top of his chair and yelled: “I beat Papa!” But Amine could never bring himself to let it happen. It was beyond his control. A son, he thought, must be toughened up, must learn to lose.

  How long does he stay there, standing in front of his mother’s grave? It is daytime and his flashlight is still on when he decides to make his way back to the house. The first farmworkers are arriving from the douar and he beckons a few of them over with a brusque wave of his hand. Here, there’s a hole in the plastic sheeting of a greenhouse. There, the crates have not been put near the plants awaiting delivery. There is so much to do. His brain is buzzing.

  He sits at his desk and puts his hand on the teapot that Tamo has left for him. It is barely even warm. Through the window he can see the Christmas tablecloths that Mathilde has washed and hung from a line. Opposite the big palm tree, little Alsatian girls in wooden clogs are holding hands, and fat white geese are lifting their beaks up to heaven. He goes back to reading an article that Aïcha sent him, describing the research of a certain Ancel Keys on the benefits of olive oil. He is absorbed by his reading when Achour knocks on the glass door, making him jump. Since his stroke, Achour has found it difficult to speak. Using his left arm, the only one that still works, he gestures at Amine to come outside. Achour tells him that during the night some men built a large wooden stage on the other side of the road. This morning they arranged chairs, planted flags, and spread vast carpets in shimmering colors over the ground. “You know what that means?” Amine nods. “The king is coming.” The king, who never walks on bare earth, on wet grass, city streets, or sandy beaches. The king who, since the attempts on his life, is no longer merely their guide and protector but God’s chosen one, saved by the grace of fate. Every day brings its litany of good news. The king wishes to give bread to the people, develop the road network, raise salaries, subsidize sugar, build dams, inaugurate a new holiday. On September 19, 1972, in a speech broadcast on television, the king announced the launch of an agrarian revolution and the nationalization of colonized territories. And today, here and elsewhere across the country, a ceremony is being prepared to celebrate the handover of property deeds to landless peasants.

  Amine leaves his office and strides along the dirt path, followed by Achour. “Go back to work,” Amine tells him. “And make sure the others are where they should be.” He walks to the front gate and crosses the road. Dozens of cars are parked below, and journalists, wielding notebooks and cameras, are taking their seats in the audience. Some of the European journalists have raised their jacket collars and are blowing into their hands, surprised by the bitter cold of December here, which slips through their layers of clothing and makes them shiver. They know nothing of this country, Amine thinks; they imagine Morocco is a hot country. A Moroccan television crew is setting up a camera between the rows of seats. Amine recognizes the presenter, a specialist in royal visits who is mocked all over the country for his ability to speak endlessly without saying anything, his words filling the long silences while waiting for the king’s arrival.

  The wind blows and they all look up at the dozens of flags that line the side of the road. The bright-red fabric billows, making a flapping noise, and the green five-pointed star appears then vanishes. To the right of the stage a group of musicians in white djellabas, their shaved heads covered by turbans, are tuning their instruments. Amine climbs on top of the wall that encircles his property. From here he can see a truck arriving from El Hajeb. The sound of the engine sends the crowd into a state of chaotic agitation. The members of the orchestra stand straight, ready to play the first notes of the national anthem. They expect to see the king, but in fact it is only some peasants, who get out of the truck one by one in their new djellabas, their faces and hands scrubbed clean. Policemen escort them to their places, telling them in stern voices what they should say, what they should do, how they should behave. A journalist heads over to the group of peasants; he wants to interview them, but is told that this is not the time. The king might arrive at any moment, so he must remain in his position. There will be plenty of time afterward to ask questions.

  Amine does not take his eyes off these men. They shoot each other knowing looks; some of them laugh and kiss one another on the cheeks. They are lined up in front of an immense portrait of the king and his son, the crown prince. Hassan II, in a beige djellaba and a fez, a proud peasant among peasants. This picture bears no resemblance to the one that hangs in Amine’s office. Gone are the double-breasted suit, the silk pocket handkerchief, and the flannel jacket. Gone is the thousand-yard stare, like the models from Studio Harcourt. No, this portrait is very different and it reminds Amine of images from his childhood. The photograph of his own father, Kadour Belhaj, taken at a studio in the city center. The fez, the woolen djellaba, the hard gaze of a man used to commanding others.

  Someone gives the order and the musicians pick up their lutes and drums and strike up an ugly, nagging tune, one of those soulless songs that are played constantly on the radio. Amine realizes that the king will not come and he is about to head back to work when he hears some journalists cry out in surprise. In the distance, in a cloud of dust, a dozen horsemen can be seen arriving, dressed as if in the time of the Sultan Moulay Ismail. Fine leather boots, red and green turbans. They raise their muskets and fire into the air as the crowd roars excitedly. The Europeans can’t believe their eyes. For a moment they forget that they are here to work, that they have articles to write, and they behave like children at a fairground. Images of a long-gone age appear before their eyes. The great ancestral Morocco, which the people here are always harping on about, is not dead after all. The riders steer their horses in rapid circles, the front hooves rearing up at the last moment. The peasants applaud, smiling proudly at the thought that all this pomp is just for them.

  Two Mercedes advance along the roadside and some men get out. Amine recognizes the pasha and, beside him, a man he thinks is probably a minister, though he isn’t sure about that. He pulls his woolen socks up over his calves and stands on top of the narrow wall. This way he has a better view of the pasha, who climbs onto the stage and sits in the smaller of the two chairs. The throne, with its golden frame, remains unoccupied. The audience understands that the king will not come and an immense wave of weariness seems to overwhelm them. Ingrates, Amine thinks. Don’t you think he has better things to do?

  The pasha taps the microphone. It doesn’t work. A thin young man in a gray suit starts frantically running around in all directions. At last the microphone is fixed and the pasha speaks. Amine can’t hear his words very well but he recognizes the tone. He has heard it before from children who have been to the msid, the Quranic school, and who have been forced to learn verses by heart. The pasha pays tribute to the king, glorified by God, and to the agrarian reform His Majesty has called for. “The Moroccan agricultural revolution has begun! His Majesty, may God give strength to his reign, knows that it is the peasants who are responsible for this country’s greatness and prosperity. And soon, with his dam-building policy, we will be able to irrigate every acre of land. We are going to give you back what is yours. We are going to enrich the poor without impoverishing the rich.” The young man in the gray suit hands the pasha a piece of paper. The pasha shouts out a name. A fellah steps forward as the crowd applauds. For the first time in his life, he walks onto a stage and people look at him, film him, cheer him. Tomorrow, perhaps, he will be on television, so the fellah turns to the camera and smiles. He has only two teeth. The pasha claps. “Look how happy this man is!” And he presents the fellah with his property deed. Flashbulbs pop. The peasant kisses the piece of paper, then kisses the pasha’s shoulder. Ululations rise from the audience, cries of joy, shouts of “Long live the king!” and “Long live the people!”