-The Voice & The Hammer- Short Story Written By Saïd Ahoubate, Translated By Mohamed Said Raihani

“When dreaming, thought gets free, impression flies away to the world of the Infinite and the Absolute.

When dreaming, we meet the way children do.

When dreaming, language pours tales of romance and strips naked before all the angles of view, expecting uncensored narration.

There is no limit, when dreaming, just as there is no limit when visualizing and at the peak of dream there looms Vision”

Saïd Ahoubate




I heard her voice in the dark. I thought that I was dreaming. I opened my eyes with difficulty to make sure that I was awake and that the voice came suppressed across one of the walls. I got up from bed and put on my grey suit. Her suppressed begging faded away. I contained my anxiety so that she could not ask me to fulfil something beyond my will.

- “Please, all that I want you to do is to pull down this wall…”

I wondered: “To pull down the wall! What a folly! There will be a real disaster if I demolish this wall no matter how futile the act can be.

Hardly had I borne the hammer to try my first strike on the wall when I found myself surrounded by those foreign people who cannot communicate in the same language and, consequently, need no explanations on the issue.

- “You don’t need something great. Only three strikes and I am delivered.

I felt embarrassed. I have received a strict education, as far as women are concerned. My father used to tell me:

-“You should never let a woman down no matter how the price is!”

My father was a cavalryman and he lost his life as a result of his heroism dying stabbed in the chest for the sake of a woman who was humiliated a man.

I glanced at my watch and I saw that time was pressing and I had to go to work lest there should be any query waiting for me. I was wearing my first shoe when the feminine voice mumbled for the fourth time and last time:

-“If you deliver me, you will deliver yourself”.

I have never thought of freedom before. I looked up at the wall and asked:

-“How can I deliver myself?”

Surely, behind the wall there is another room where some woman is undergoing punishment. I shrugged my shoulders and leant again to wear the second shoe.

-“You’re wrong. You believe that the entire world looks like your room”.

I was feeling uneasy. I wished that one of those foreigners would come would come and close that wall forever. I did not need new contradictions in my life. I hurried out of the room, heading for the boulevard, joining the human masses flowing torrentially on the pavements, trying to get on time to work. I came in, finally, to find everybody busy working. The foreman got closer to me, smiling as always:

-“Why are you so late?”

I glanced at the watch. It was a little more than half past eight. Cold beads of sweat ran down my forehead and I felt ashamed.

-“You’ll have one day’s work extracted from your salary”.

He smiled again and allowed me in.



* * * *

I went to some area known for selling hammers. We are not allowed to be in such places but I felt an ambiguous need to go there. I found great pleasure at watching hammers and I bought a really big and heavy one. I brought it home with me underneath my coat.

Barely had I come home when the walls surprised me asking:

-“Have you brought the hammer?”

I tried to duck the question:

-“No”.

There was again that malicious question:

-“Then, what is that underneath your coat?”

I carried on evading the question but in vain as the voice was growing more feminine, more tempting:

-“One one strike and your whole destiny will change!”

I clutched the hammer underneath my coat. I was silent for a while. At that time, I noticed that two feminine lips looming on the wall and gently asking:

-“Do you love your job?”

-“Yes, I do”.

-“You’re a liar”.

The voice was so sarcastic that my grip around the hammer handle started to shiver and I was intensely angry.

-“Why am I a liar?”

-“You’re scared”.

-“I am not”

She insisted violently:

-“You’re nothing but a coward”

I raised the hammer and started pounding on the wall so vehemently that I heard her sigh in satisfaction:

-“That’s wonderful. Give me more…”

I carried on hammering impetuously on the wall and the feminine voice burst out laughing louder and louder. Wrath was overwhelming me so much that I lost consciousness of what was going around.

The pounding continued automatically on the wall and I felt myself reduced to a mere tool handled by the hammer.

Finally, the wall yielded and there was a big opening within. At first, I thought it was a big cloud. I was unable to distinguish anything while the voice has entirely disappeared and there was that absolute silence.

I went through the opening in the wall after hesitation but only to face a metallic closed door. I hammered on the door until a mature man showed me in. The room was narrow and stifling. I found a man with a dark suit behind his desk with a black cap on.

The mature man withdrew to stand among his fellows while the other man kept examining me. After a while, I heard his harsh voice:

-“You showed a rare bravado and daring…”

I made no reply. He continued:

-“We need you and the likes of you. We are in the process of extinction.”

I dared to ask him:

-“Who are you?”

He exchanged meaningful looks with his fellows and said:

-“We are the Vanguards of the city”

Two men whom I had not noticed before got closer to me and undressed me. They gave me a black suit and a cap. The man seated said:

-“Henceforward, you’ll have to be punctual. I haven’t found so far anybody as skilled at using hammers as you are”.

I asked the tall man with spiky hair standing upright beside me:

-“What are you doing?”

He was careless to my question but I heard, instead, the seated man’s voice echoing all around the place:



“Dear fellows, we feel humiliation being so marginalized in this city, we Vanguards. Our dangerous mission is to set new values on the ruins of this sinful city and establish a newer regime… A regime that will set us free. So, dear fellows, go on your sacred mission…”



Then we found ourselves shouting enthusiastically, snatching our heavy hammers and pacing to the walls to pull them down.



***********

* The writer, Saïd Ahoubate, is a Moroccan short-story writer, born on 03/09/1951 in El Hadjeb, Morocco.. He published in Arabic "A Surrealistic Morning" (Short Stories) 2003 and is getting ready for print "Invisible Faces" (Short Stories).

* The translator, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd 1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Will of Singularity" (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. He is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading» (testimonies) and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).

* " The Voice & The Hammer " is the twelfth narrative text in the "The Moroccan Dream", An Anthology of Moroccan new short story directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.

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