Now and then he raised his eyes to the higher slopes of the mountain to the left and to the rolling vines and olive country to the right. Few other people shared with him this long, sandy road. As he approached the village, more and more people appeared. But when he reached the prison gate he found nobody. He only found foot tracks, some of which he recognized easily. His elder brother’s foot tracks were too clear to be mistaken. These foot tracks led him to the beach. All the gang was there, gathered on a rock facing the sea. They did not stop talking when he greeted them. Even his brother did not rise to embrace him. They were all arguing about names. “Let’s call him Sidi Brahim,” one said. Others suggested other names: Moulay Ahmed, Sidi Abbad, Sidi Saeed, Sidi Larbi… Finally, someone rose and said, “Listen! We’ll call him Sidi Bushashiya!” Everyone else agreed, and, as if they had just noticed the one who was listening to them, uncomprehending, two of them said in unison: “Hafid, if you want to keep on the safe side, then watch your tongue.” Hafid just bowed his head in thought and said nothing. Then, all the others sprang to their feet and soon were by the roaring waves.
With mouth shut and wide opened eyes, Hafid followed the gang as they looked for a wreckage, which they found nearly three miles away. They all joked and laughed while they dismantled the wreckage, out of which they then made a coffin. Four of the twelve men carried the empty coffin on their shoulders and took the lead. The others followed on their heels in silence. Then they stopped by the remains of a dead donkey. “Here it is!” a voice exclaimed jubilantly.
Hafid watched and listened in amazement as his fellow hamlet men picked up the dry remains of the dead donkey, wrapped them in a white cloth and placed them horizontally on the coffin. Then, the procession headed for the hamlet, the hamlet of Hafid and all the others. Two hours later, they were there. Someone came to Hafid, and asked:
“What’s this, Hafid? Who’s that those people are carrying on their shoulders? How dare they come back now––only seven months after their banishment? Weren’t they banished for a whole year? Speak! Answer me!”
“I don’t know,” Hafid said, moving on.
The Imam of the local mosque asked similar questions and more when the twelve men stood in the small square in front of the mosque, lining up behind the coffin, out of which came a curious, unpleasant odour. A huge crowd gathered around the square and listened in astonishment as one of the “gangsters” started answering the Imam’s questions:
“You’re right, Honourable Imam! I can understand that you can’t understand how we became what we are now. You always looked down upon us as a gang. And a gang we were, indeed. We drank wine and when we were drunk we would come close to your homes and say bad things that hurt you. We know that you were angry with us. You beat us up so many times because we had failed to repent, and then you banished us for a whole year. And when we were away, we did awful things, for which we were put in jail. The jail was meant to be a punishment for us, as was the banishment. But, fortunately, it turned out to be a good thing for us. And that’s no lie, Honourable Imam. We did indeed meet in the jail a man who transformed us. He lit the way to repentance for us. And then we were all freed on the same day, and this man –May God be pleased with him– was coming with us to our hamlet, but then he suddenly died on the way. We couldn’t bury him–I mean, we didn’t want to bury him anywhere but in our hamlet. This is a good man––what you see in this coffin is a saint, Honourable Imam! That’s why we brought his corpse over here in the hope of burying it amidst us. We trust –and you can trust us– that as long as Sidi Bushashiya’s tomb is nearby, we shall never be as we were before. We beg your pardon for all we did. We promise we shall never hurt you again. That’s all I can say, Honourable Imam.”
The talk went on for half an hour or so, and in the end, the villagers said yes to the Repenters’ plea for mercy, no to their plea for burying a stranger in their lands. So the Repenters took up the coffin and left the hamlet with tearful eyes. They went on to the weekly market. They went around, with the coffin on their shoulders, explaining their story to who ever wanted to listen. A man came up to them, and said: “I shall give you a plot of ground where you can bury this good man for the time being. Meanwhile, I’ll try to persuade your people to change their minds.”
The place the Repenters were given was a tiny plot of ground near the beach. It was there that the donor used to throw his waste. But the Repenters cleared the place and buried the corpse and planted shrubs around it. Then, they made a habit of coming to the shrine every Friday to pay their respect. They offered candles, pieces of sugar, and coins. Other people soon started doing likewise. Sidi Bushashiya was increasingly becoming just like any other saint, after rumours spread that he made miracles. All the sick came, and so did all those who needed a child, a life partner, or just good health or good luck.
The Repenters themselves became very important persons. Hafid’s brother married the most beautiful woman in the hamlet, and his wife became Sidi Bushashiya’s Ambassador in the neighbourhood. Hafid feared for his reason when he saw his own mother kiss his brother’s head and heard her plead with him to pray for her during his visits to Sidi Bushashiya. Even the Imam declared publicly that he was sorry for having denied Sidi Bushashiya burial in the hamlet. Let alone what many of the hamlet elderly men said! When, two years later, Hafid learnt that an annual moussem would be held for Sidi Bushashiya, he nearly broke down.
Meanwhile, more land was donated to the shrine, and so a splendid mausoleum was built for Sidi Bushashiya, and the first moussem was held a year later and Hafid could do nothing about it. In fact, he went there in search of a wife. He wanted to find a woman more beautiful than his brother’s wife. He wanted to prove to people that God gave to the Faithful much better than what He gave the idolaters and the pagans.
And they were innumerable the women, young and old, who came to the moussem–on foot and on donkey. He could not see all the women (because of their veils), but he kept going around the vast ground on which all sorts of merchants and vendors had set up makeshift shops for the occasion. Hafid went particularly around to the shops and stands that sold women things. Suddenly, he heard quarrelling voices. Like many others, he rushed towards the mausoleum to see what was happening. He thrust his way through the flocks of sheep, goats and chickens brought as offerings to the shrine. And then he saw one of the Repenters brandishing a knife and threatening a middle-aged man with a long white beard. A whole lot of people were trying to stand between the two men. But the white-bearded man was saying things even the most patient soul in the moussem could hardly bear to hear. “Let him kill me!” he said defiantly. “I know him very well. I know all his fellow gangsters very well. I had got a premonition they would do it. I knew they were the kind of people who’d die for money. I said to them, jokingly, ‘If you bury a dead donkey in a tomb and start worshipping it, then people like you will do likewise, and then you’ll be important people, and so you can profit from that by selling to the visitors in one moussem more than ordinary shops would sell in a year!' O people! Listen to me! This Sidi Boushashiya is nothing but a dead donkey! And these men you call “repenters” are nothing but people who want to make money out of this moussem!” At that moment, someone came out of nowhere and stabbed the white-bearded man in the back. As the white-bearded man fell to the ground, people started running away in all directions. Hafid darted a bewildered look at his brother and scurried away.
The next morning the news came that the shrine had been burnt down. As to the Repenters, nobody knew where they had fled.
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