By Ahmed Jalali
I was a boy. The cartilage in my knee was a tight spring. If it had no football to kick hard, it struck at whatever lay in the road. But beyond the dreamed-of ball, my small mind and fast heart wanted a bicycle. Not the one my cousin had. His father bought it for seventy dirhams. Seventy dirhams was a fortune then. It was a fifty-dirham note with the weight of the King’s grave face on it.
I spent years dreaming. I did well in school. Better than well. I beat the other boys by miles. But no one bought me a bicycle.
The pictures of cyclists in old papers and magazines held a strange power. Every time I saw one, I cut it out. I hid the pictures inside my schoolbooks.
That spring day, I decided to climb the hill. It was the highest place I knew. "Koudiat Ould Soultana," they called it. From there you could see every village and all the green fields spread out. I climbed. I wish I had not.
A kilometer away, between two big fields, I saw them. A family—a man, a woman, two children my age. They had a car. It looked European. They parked it and spread a blanket near the secondary road the French built. It was old asphalt, but it held firm.
I watched them. They were creatures I could not name, but they looked happy. Then I saw the children. They raced. They were on two small, sleek bicycles. Next to those, my cousin's bike looked like scrap metal in a dump.
I thought about going down. To run from my high place. I wanted to see the bicycles close up. Maybe one of the children would let me ride. Just for a minute. Or touch the metal if riding was impossible. I thought about moving. But a fear held me. A vague, unknown fear of strangers who might take me.
I froze there. I watched them race. Then they got off the bikes. They ran and jumped like monkeys just set free from a cage. Happy in the open air.
I stayed fixed to the spot. Watching them. I felt the hurt of not having a bike. I did not move until the strangers got into their car and drove away. I did not know where they went.
I grew up. I have ridden many bicycles since. Some were expensive. Some were fine and new. But the image of that blue bicycle, the one the child who looked like a 'Christian' rode, stayed with me. Every detail was sharp. My child's eye had been strong.
I have not forgotten the color, the shape, the seat of that beautiful machine. I never will.
Koudiat Ould Soultana is gone now. The place became a village. The village wants to be a city. The land changed. But the picture of the bicycle in my mind keeps its bright color. The shine of its brakes. The gleam of its aluminum frame.
Give me my bicycle. Ask for whatever you want.