Unveiling Monsieur Jacques: Leïla Bahsaïn’s Third Novel Exposes Dark Realities in 1990s Marrakech

2024-04-06 00:18:27

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Libédossier’s Livres notebook In Leïla Bahsaïn’s third novel, young prey and a chic French pedophile meet in Marrakech in the 1990s.

With Ce que je sais de monsieur Jacques, her third novel, the Moroccan writer Leïla Bahsaïn delivers an initiation novel which takes the form of an uncompromising social fresco. Loula, the teenage narrator who sees her body transform and desperately tries to “tame [s]es breasts”, written with a dictionary as if to be as close as possible to the horror and its harshness. It tells the story of the childhood of a generation marked by violence. Their elders are cowardly, complicit and guilty of “non-protectorship”. “Adults do not see, and refuse to see, and see and say nothing,” notes the narrator. With her eye glued to the peephole, she observes the wanderings of poor people. Where are they going ? In the lair of an ogre with an insatiable appetite. The villain has an enigmatic name: “Monsieur Jacques”. What do we know regarding him? Not much. It is aerial, outside of reality. Aboveground. He cruises on his bike with horn handlebars and a high saddle. Jacques is handsome. Jacques is slender with a muscular body highlighted by his fitted tank top and shorts. Jacques is chic! Jacques is French. “And the French are always right, we would even give them the good Lord and the Child Jesus and the Virgin Mary without confession and without distinction of good and bad actions,” regrets Loula. Jacques is comfortably installed in the Marrakech of the 1990s. The aesthete is entitled to his macabre anthem that the children sing clandestinely:

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