The night fell brutally. It was pitch dark like the soot on the sidewall of an old clay stove used to bake country bread. A heavy silence, reminiscent of cemeteries, hung over the suburbs. The moon had long since disappeared and the first starlight had not yet decided to appear. So, seizing the opportunity, darkness danced and murmured imperceptibly.

He was not bothered by darkness. He had grown up with it. It had never hindered him. He knew where to put his feet in front of him. His path was all mapped out. He couldn’t risk deviating from his path since, as the old saying goes, “he who is surrounded by darkness cannot choose between paths.”

In any event, he never considered going further, so he was not obliged to choose among the paths. His sole aim was to reach the staircase leading to the roof of the mosque, or even better to the top of the minaret, where he took refuge during his moments of melancholy or when worry tortured his soul.

Once settled in these heights, he would lie flat on his back, letting his eyes wander, scrutinizing the vastness of the heavens, moving from one star to another until he plunged surreptitiously into the gloomy ocean of dreams from which he often emerged with an immaculate soul, relieved heart, and cheered face, escaping in this manner the clutch of all his worries.

But where did his dreams go that night? Why did they not come to his rescue as usual? Normally, the dreams would have overwhelmed him like a sudden, merciless downpour on a lonely wanderer, but this time, the tangled vines of his love held them off. He would have given anything to enjoy them that night.

It seemed to him that the worries that lay in wait for him that day had taken up permanent residence because they were completely unlike his others. His usual worries swooped down on him, they battered him, then released him as if nothing had happened.

The worries of that day, however, were, at least in the beginning, inconsistent, so mild that they appeared to be nonexistent. Yet over time, they snuggled up, like a chick freshly broken from its egg that struggles to shake off the shell, and started to undermine the legendary serenity of Si Brahim Tachenyart, “the Torch.”

He was most preoccupied with composing and polishing the speech he had to deliver on Friday to his congregation. This speech kept him awake because—unlike the majority of his colleagues, the suburban Imams—he was afraid of plagiarizing. He wanted to convince everybody that he was an Imam, a real one. Even if he himself had no doubt of his competence, he liked that people talked about it. After all, as the saying goes, “it is not for the basil to boast of the merits of its perfumed odors, but for those who, inhaling it, are infatuated by its fragrance.”

Alas! The villagers did not appreciate Si Brahim Tachenyart. Worse still, he had no hope that they ever would. And that hurt him immensely.

That he spends sleepless nights writing, erasing, and rewriting endlessly to sharpen and refine his speeches . . . that he grows hoarse reading to them . . . that he augments his speech with gestures, facial contortions, and widening and narrowing his eyes . . . Whatever he did at the end to emphasize his speech was pointless. The congregation was completely and hermetically deaf to his preaching, including those who surrounded and followed him abjectly. As for those congregants who couldn’t understand his words, who didn’t pay attention to him, he did everything to bombard them, to deafen, to drown them with his good words, sweet talk.

It was this misery that prevented Si Brahim from enjoying the delicious reveries that normally filled his heart every time he settled himself on the roof of the mosque. Jabbed by the sting of this damned annoyance, Si Brahim ran down the stairs to take refuge in his lodgings on the ground floor. He scrutinized the heavens in vain; he knew that this frustration would not leave him in peace.

Si Brahim abruptly felt the desire to confide in someone, having a strong belief that it was the sole hope to relieve his battered heart. Sharing his misery seemed to him more than necessary, and the old saying “If you tell me who haunts you, I will tell you who to confide in” consoled him. He poured his heart out to one of his friends:

“You can’t imagine what an ordeal drafting my Friday sermons is! And yet, they have no effect on my congregation! They not only fall asleep, they snore! As we say back home, I feel like I’m carrying water in a sieve. I’m exhausted!”

“Is that all? Do you think you’re the only one who’s suffering from this?” answered his friend. He widened his inquisitive eyes and continued: “I don’t know why you’re disturbed by their sleep! Don’t you know that the more distant you are from your congregation, the more they respect you, and the more they learn about you, the more they despise you? My friend, have you nothing else to do? You have too much time on your hands.”

“Some consolation!” retorted Si Brahim.

As soon as his friend opened his mouth, Si Brahim knew that he should not expect much from him. So, he told himself: “Such statements would be welcomed by unconscientious people, the lazy ones . . . But me, I’m hot-blooded, I’m boiling with energy, I will not accept wasting my youth on this nonsense. I endured starvation. I squatted in the middle of the night with the goats in their temporary shelter. I learned by heart thousands of verses from the Quran. I have strolled among the meanderings of books and crossed oceans of knowledge while even the most successful of my classmates remained simple teachers at Quranic schools. If I had listened to such madmen, I would not have gone further, I would not have climbed the podium of a praying room inside a big mosque.”

Si Brahim bid his friend farewell convinced that “it was up to him to put his house in order.” He was the first to discover the problem. But since he did not see a way out of his misery, he called together members of his congregation and shouted at them: “You must know that those of you who feel sleepy or doze off during Friday sermon do not accomplish your prayers properly. You must know that the purpose of this sermon that I deliver every Friday is not to make you listen to it like background music? No! It is your challenge to understand my statements. If necessary, ask me. More importantly, don’t think it’s incomprehensible!”

An old man named Dda Said Ibiw took the floor and told Si Brahim: “Why not? Won’t we find divine praise and grace only if we can’t understand your sermon?”

Without waiting for the Imam’s reaction, another elder called Hammou N’Ait Ali said indignantly: “No sir! No! I understand everything you say; nothing escapes me.” And, almost speechless, he repeated: “Nothing. Today, I know that you spoke to us about a lot of things . . . I don’t remember them at the moment . . . Yes! I remember . . . You mentioned aqrab, that leather satchel, yes, you told us about aqrab!” He continued: “Tell them, Si Brahim! Tell them that you spoke to us about aqrab and probably also about ahanou n’aqrab! Did you say this, Si Brahim? Speak!”

“You are lost, Hammou. I talked about neither aqrab nor ahanou today. I clearly said: ‘wa nahnou aqrabou,’ which means in Arabic ‘we are the closest.’ The aqqrab about which I spoke has nothing to do with ajjbir. Aqrab in Arabic means ‘the closest,’ so—”

Hammou interrupted him. “You see very well, Si Brahim, that we’re talking about the same thing. Is there anything closer to a man than his aqrab, or ajjbir, as you called it in your speech? Aren’t you originally from the mountainside? It’s in your region you say ‘ajjbir.’ Here in our region it is called ‘aqrab’ and nothing but ‘aqrab.’ But let’s not make a fuss about what I mentioned, as there are more important things. I have a question, Si Brahim: can a woman carry an aqrab?”

Hammou turned toward a man in the congregation and shouted in his face: “What makes you laugh? My question? Do you think I made it up? I swear to you on whatever you want that this happened, there . . . Not far from your place . . . Never mind! I’m going to disclose the secret. It was a woman in Biybrine’s family who carried an aqrab. This was even mentioned in the wise elders’ circle last Thursday. Somebody even called it a harbinger of the apocalypse!”   

At that moment, another normally taciturn old man interrupted Hammou and said: “No, no, Hammou, you are wrong there. The harbinger of the apocalypse is when the mare gives birth. May God spare our lives!”

Then he turned toward the Imam and said, “Isn’t that right, Si Brahim? Isn’t that what’s written in the Book?”

Si Brahim frowned. “You’re so talkative, Hammou; I’m speechless!” And, addressing his congregation: “It is not befitting that a man drags on in never-ending talks; this so diminishes the talkative person.”

Hammou interrupted him again with “We don’t know what to do with you, Si Brahim! When we sleep, you get mad at us, and when we ask you questions, you get madder!”

At that, Si Brahim put an end to the conversation and said to his congregation, “Let’s pray to the Lord’s prophet and return to our homes.”

***

The moment Si Brahim climbed the pulpit to deliver his Friday sermon in Tamazight, the vernacular of his congregation, for the first time, nobody suspected that the person standing before them that day was anything but the same stream in which two distinct tributaries pour, one representing the past and the other the future. Three full months of worry and nightmare had tried and tested Si Brahim; they heavily unsettled and turned him into someone who dared to cut ties with the past.

When he first thought of translating his Friday sermon into Tamazight, his heart throbbed wildly, his whole body shivered, but he said to himself: “Why be afraid? Isn’t my aim, for the sake of my congregants, to shed more light on the knowledge of the Lord?”

But even though he was convinced he was correct, he was forbidden from undertaking it before consulting with his peers, the other Imams, although he knew that he could not count upon their approval. His intuition did not let him down: when he consulted them, none agreed that his Friday sermon should be delivered in any languages other than Arabic. [i]     

“I get the impression that you’re trying to jeopardize our profession,” one admonished him. Others simply did not want to discuss it.

“But to hear people say that the Imam keeps people in the darkness of ignorance is more pernicious and deals a serious blow to our profession!” Si Brahim protested.

Despite his peers’ objections echoing in his brain, Si Brahim was determined: he would deliver his sermon to his congregation in their mother tongue, Tamazight.

That Friday, he spoke to his congregation. “The acquisition of knowledge in general, because it concerns the creator, is obviously accessible through the mother tongue.” As they looked up in surprise, he continued, “I know I often bore you and mystify you with knowledge in a language you don’t understand. That’s not the language you learned from your parents. As a result, most of you fall asleep, which distresses me.” He paused, then continued, “And that is why I have decided to deliver the message of God to you in a language that He chose for you. God created all human beings equal. God’s decisions are based on people’s good deeds. It was God who also bestowed upon you this ability to establish Tamazight.”

His congregants, including the normally sleepy Hammou N’Ait Ali, were mesmerized, and Si Brahim was equally moved, shivering and feeling a hint of exultation.

But nobody paid any attention to Hammou, and many expressed their gratitude to Si Brahim. Said Ibiw admitted Si Brahim’s sermon had not only kept him awake but had brought him great satisfaction.

The reticent and venerated Azrour N’Igouzouln also approached Imam Brahim and expressed his admiration. “You are brave,” he said, squeezing Si Brahim’s hand. “But,” he added, “be careful. You never know what may happen.”

[i] What follows is the translator’s summary of the next events in the novel, added to complete the narrative.