Looking for Elixir of Life

By Mbarek Nekkachi

I contribute a lot of money, time, and effort to this research for the Elixir. Even though I preferred another way that the first initiator, in old India used to search for an approach to this thesis. It was a very hard time for me, but I managed to stick it out.
Thus, the meaning of Elixir of life, in this context, differs from what was previously written about it. Foremost, the elixir of life is not a potion; it is a set of elements that make a sense of life. In my inspiration, I made an effort to look for other resources: physical, spiritual, social, communicative, and whatever makes it out of material consideration. It was a weird journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9781663260758

Mbarek Nekkachi

Most of the happenings recorded in this book really occurred to the writer, and matched his experience in life. The rest is fiction. A lot of characters in this novel were his friends, relatives, and colleagues. This practice of attributing originals to the characters of the novel’s structure is a very hard technical task.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

1

F OR SAM, L OOKING FOR THE elixir of life in this human swamp is like looking for a needle in the stack. He is always cautious and always on the alert in his research. He said that it’s better safe than sorry. It is better to be careful rather than regret it afterward when something bad happens.

Sam Nohman, sensitive man; a 42-year-old; second-grade teacher in Tangier city. For him, age doesn’t matter much. There was a look of ecstasy on his face. Something about the man that kept people away, and not just as a mark of respect for him, but something that he kept secret for himself. Something that was far from the mobs and ignorant people, that may destroy it. For him, being described or ascribed to someone or something is not acceptable. When he had obtained a degree in philosophy, he didn’t know what to do with it, when society had been denied it, and focused on money, whatever its origin. He knows which way the wind blows and always acts accordingly.

May I devote my life teaching other people philosophy, and let them worry about what to do with it? Why is doing a Ph.D. is often a waste of time? He wondered and remembered that he’d heard that it denotes atheism in his country and even in many countries. Also, he’d heard the expression mean teacher often enough, but had never realized that it had a literal meaning. There must be no worry about money for him. He’s above such things. He decided that he’ll get over these difficulties, and to recover from an illusion or bad experience.

Jasmine Brandy, his wife, 36, made his life a misery by nagging at him and by indulging a taste of romance with an intention calculated to destroy his life. Her behavior has been strange recently. She’s in one of her moods again and found it hard to contain her anger. They have got three children_ two boys and a girl.

She and her lover have constantly seen each other for the past two years. One day her father met Sam and anger was sparkling in his eyes. He said, If you were misunderstanding each other, I think it would be better for you to be separated. And he didn’t dare to tell him she’s round at some lawyer’s office filling a demand for divorce right now.

No lawyer needed, Sam insisted. If you like a divorce, we can hammer out the details without any lawyer intervention. He saw that the word divorce is not yet part of our vocabulary of love.

2

The days, the months, that followed had bitterness; inner cruelty that changed her. She felt the change taking place, and held to the new edge of hard cruelty. Things went for several months. Jasmine got increasingly depressed. For no more than eight years, their two sons wanted to know what they were going to do. But Sam could not leave them, just starting in their lives, carrying residual guilt of their parents’ separation. The divorce would rock the kid’s world more than it deserves to be rocked.

Women on the slide, or in embarrassment, always cause trouble. It’s why they ended up in the divorce. And this again did not embarrass, as she keeps secrets and is afraid to be discovered. What had deterred her from acting at once had been the children and the wave of scandal that would wash her away from relatives and friends? But then she was determined to live her life as it must be lived.

In her parents’ attitude to Sam, he sensed continuous criticism. Nothing directly was said now, or nothing that he could answer back in his defence, but the end-encroachment upon him was there. He knew at once that the subject had been discussed between them the night before. Nothing was said to him. Consequently, he must decide for himself. He does not let anyone else influence him. Here is what he remembers clearly about that part of his old life or his old mind.

He’s talking about the time when their marriage became a sort of unbearable hell. They had been in this state for at least two past years. She battled with her mixed feelings about the matter. Having to make all the decisions is a terrible burden for him. But Jasmine wanted heartily to leave him and take the children with her as soon as possible. Time would prove them the authentic man who would emerge face to face more than ever.

Now she was another. He found out that she was obsessive with an ardent affectionate nature, very possessive. This possessive quality moved her strongly. But Sam knows that men and women never can wholly possess each other. His mind felt confused. He didn’t want to lose his children and his intimate world. For her, her lover was upon any consideration. The frightening thing about this romance was her compulsion to see him constantly. And after a suitable time, they could marry. At night, she lays awake and illusions for that suitable time. Eventually, Jasmine would avoid the regard of relatives and friends.’ People remarried every day, and it was acceptable.’ She thought to herself.

At that time things went wrong. Such a marriage was my failure, he thought and went on, It was surprising to me how cunning my mother-in-law was, and he wasn’t sure what their game was, but he didn’t trust them. Yet even such conspiracy has a meaning in some measure for him so that he could contemplate it and know what was going on without being directly involved. But how could he know this? By realization of course, but also if inexplicable, by the intuition of what went on in their minds. Until his mind changes, the divorce is just legal fiction. The battle with her folk was out in the open. It was as if he had stumbled across a key to a bigger danger and lost it.

3

Now she was closeted with her lawyer. This could mean, at last, she was arranging the divorce proceedings. Her devil’s lawyer tries to demolish your cause, who tries to show you that your subject does not deserve anything. He used to be one of the four marriage consoles of the Conciliation Court in Tangier. Curious treachery was in lawyers, no so much treachery as ruthlessness and … They would lie, and deceive, and be treacherous to the utmost degree, to get their daily living a small-time lawyer keen to be someone.

Well, listen to me, Jasmine: if you’ve got a lawyer, you can make him for being such a wimp, Sam warned her. Yes, the lawyer_ human rights where?

I have no patience for the amenities, the social work game, that is deplorable. I like to get the essentials, get on with it, get the best, and learn and improve, Jasmine replied.

The lawyer could keep us from becoming complacent. He could advocate, but to bolster us and improve us, for our benefit, not our detriment. We don’t need a lawyer. We don’t need any unfair justice, he claimed.

Her lawyer asked for an adjournment. He wasn’t hedging or even speculating in the normal sense; he was playing a giant game of cat and mouse with Sami. But Sam had a distinct impression that he was lying. He phoned him, Stop being a lawyer’s wife. Try to be human. The law is dead. The lawyer didn’t say a word and cut off.

Could she, with her guilty conscience, desert him? She could, that would be her secret and quite a remorseless intention, but she could not do it with hard indifference and brutality. Almost before Sam began to think of her, he became excited, not only physically, but with an elated, poisonous, mental excitement.

He will appear before the court in the morning like a man has been charged. When you go into court on things like this, you are going into an arena of combat, do or die and no quarter asked or given. It’s best for us to be divorced, she said after a long conversation about detachment. That was all she wanted, but her tone and look implied that she had to say, avenge upon him. Her parents moved in with her, denounced him day and night, went to the court every morning, and never allowed her to be alone with him. They were determined to support their daughter. But it was there that a shock awaited him. All those fragments didn’t work for her. Her lover had told her he wanted to marry her.

Justice of the peace position puts him in a difficult position. He had Tangier on his mind that refused the newlyweds and the nearly dead. It’s a legal thing. If one of two parties in a divorce wants a hearing, the other must, under subpoena, if necessary, show up and talk it with a counsellor. He realized the justice of the peace does not help.

4

Three days later, he received a notification to attend the court at 9 o’clock. And as the court began, he felt the blood had drained from his nerves. After a long wait, the jury filled and took their place. There was another pause, and then the judge arrived and proclaimed the opening of the court. He was a specialist in insensibility and had wide experience in human motive and feeling. The usual whispering among the lawyers and gathering together of papers followed. These details and accompanying delays worked up an atmosphere of preparation that was as impressive as it was fascinating. The judge cast Jasmine with a searching look and asked her, What’s making you ask for a divorce?

He treated me like a servant, and never shared with me his problems, his thoughts, and his hopes. Besides, I didn’t know where he spent his money. Jasmine said, hypocritically. But she could not tell the truth that she had an affair with someone.

Mr. Sam, what could you say about the matter? The judge asked.

For me, for the most part, it was unrewarding, and I couldn’t see spending the rest of my life with a woman who didn’t want me either for one reason or another. It’s very difficult for us to find out the real meaning of marriage.

Now the judge turned to Jasmine’s side. ‘Can you throw any light on the real reason for the divorce?

The real reason, I can see, is embodied in his intellectual world. He spends much more time and money on his books than on his wife and his children.

Then, he asked Sam the same question, What is your point of view?

Sam, his down; began to speak, and he told the judge what moved Jasmine to ask for the divorce. The judge nodded. He could easily find that out, tell me everything, teacher. This is something that usually happens. We question whether justice can be given to the divorcee.

When did your relationship change? Did it change on your part or on her? The judge asked.

I don’t know, I think nothing was issued on my part. I didn’t dare contradict, but I think she was wrong, Sam replied.

The judge wanted to know the reason of divorce, Tell me this. Didn’t you get your responsibilities? What did she dismiss? Is something to dismiss?"

No, she didn’t dismiss anything relevant to responsibilities. But nothing can gratify her desires.

Let me ask you, what is the cause of your trouble? The judge wondered.

Desires are the cause of all our troubles. Yet our trouble does not end with the excess of desires, Sam replied.

I see, said the judge and nodded slowly, realizing that there were details that could be confirmed. And he didn’t ask more questions. Then, her lawyer advanced toward the judge, showing a non-pregnancy certificate. He got blindly away from the court and for a few moments struggled in the grip of a sheer physical paroxysm of anger_ when she gave him that strange look that haunted him for years. It was more than farewell in its glistening anguish. There was something strangely objective in it. It was filled with an imminent reluctance and separation. But he drew back to himself and tasted the bitter fruits of his frustrations and disappointment. He felt himself falling softly into an abyss, was no doubt a real fact. The goal that he was pursuing was completely unrealistic. His ideal had vanished. And certainly, the experience undermined the ideals and illusions which sustained him in his younger days. He found himself convinced by his argument.

5

Fifteen years of being married and the best couple, and they blew it by getting divorced. So, he didn’t start feeling sorry for her. That’s just game, damn stupid. It did seem true that her game was the test of her cruelty. And presently his purpose reformed; so that the cycle started again the deadly disintegration of the core proceeded, and the vileness began to spread outward, slowly over the face of all things. The shadow of the dread double bed darkened each day, only the authenticity of his mind saved him. Fifteen years of disappointing marriage had made him very attentive to all these things: careful to people, careful to romance, careful to friends of benefits, and he was careful not to say anything about the money. He knew his attention was power_ and that made things still valid. But there are still a lot of stigmas attached to being divorced. Divorce ruined everything. There was nothing more he could do. He realized something different, something elusive and imaginary. The illusion brought his children very near to him. The divorce left an emotional scar on their personalities, so Jasmine’s marriage to her lover became a turning point in their life.

She was a book he had read, but whose meaning was only now revealed. On each page, every character was inked in annihilation. Only now He understood what moved her, understood it in clear vision. In quieted daylight moments, he could say to himself, for example: that the appearance of his wife in the court had been a hallucination arising from the core of his hazy memory that overcome his mind. That appearance was a disturbing picture. How many lovers do we know who wound up hating each other! Sit in a divorce court for a few sessions and listen to husbands and wives revealing each other, fighting ever their chattels and children worse than wild beasts over their territory. The divorce was an awful business. He found it on the whole very depressing. Most of these people were once lovers. What’s happened? Where and how did it all go wrong? Lovers were no panacea. Sex was no final solution. Children grew up and went away.

Jasmine had come to seem, for him, like someone else. Most of the people in the society felt different, and that remembered Sam of Sartre, who said, the other is hell. He tried to tell himself that the otherness he felt when he thought about his children and his life was probably natural enough in a man who had been persecuted in his life. He had serious misgivings about leaving his two sons on their own in that position. The father should be with his kids. The absence of the father would give them a nervous shock they’d never get over. And they’d blame their father, though he’s blameless, of course. What matters most is giving them a good start in life.

There was nothing more he could do. It was a relief to be free of the … Instead of the silence, he had expected to find the empty house. He guessed his authentic intelligence drives every devil away in the end.

For Jasmine gradually, she began to realize (Rep) how much happier she was without him, how Sam’s frantic energy had snapped her life, how his wild fantasies had deprived her of any fantasy life of her own. Slowly she began to recognize that it was as if she had been living in the grave for fifteen years and then, suddenly, someone let him out. There was a period of quiet, even happiness, which lasted many days.

But Sam could still recall the court and divorce proceedings. His mind could wander away from them. Often indeed it could wander into its fantasies. There is a break in an intimate world of their own, made of. He sometimes thinks that all life is a series of events: dramas, traumas, with a sprinkling of happiness thrown in to keep us on the straight and narrow. That’s the end of the game, she thought to herself. The news of divorce reaches his fellows’ ears, his colleagues in school, and his relatives and reaches everywhere.

6

The divorce was an awful business. He found it very depressing. They had been divorced two months ago, and now he was immersed in his work in school. Unfortunately, he sees now how every word and action of his could be turned against him, and sometimes people simply tell lies and frequently accuse the man who is a divorcee not the woman to be culpable.

When he had been married, and she was home as, so often, she was, he desired only to be out of the house and the majority of men have the same tendency to find any exit for an escape, though it was against all their authentic entity. But in the two months, since he had been alone, escape was not necessary. Gradually he began to feel how much happier without her, how her frantic energy had snapped his life, how her wild fantasies had deprived him of any fantasy life of his own. Slowly he began to recognize that it was as if he had been living in the grave for fifteen years, and then suddenly someone let him out.

In the other bank, Jasmine had come to seem for him, like someone else. As she never had existed as a partner in his life. And that reminds him of Sartre, who said, The other is hell, he tried to tell himself that the otherness he felt when he thought about his wife and his life was probably natural enough in a man who had been persecuted in his life. She is so ungrateful! She is biting the hand that feeds her!

There was nothing more he could do. It was a relief to be free of the vengeful burden of what he had intended to do; sheer silence, and he cared no more when he had divorced her. Instead of the silence, he had expected to find the empty house, without a wife and children he was surprised by an extra virulent restlessness that night. Once he heard his grandmother saying, Don’t just have one or even two. Have a house full of children. And life means nothing without them. He had serious misgivings about leaving them on their own in that condition; and letting someone be an intruder father for them, like Jasmine’s lover. The real father should be with his kids. His father’s absence would give them a nervous shock they never get over. Furthermore, they’d blame their father, though he’s blameless, of course. What matters most is giving the children a good start in life.

Then he made the bed and got into it with the thought that he would be perfectly new in the morning. He was supposed to lose his life, but didn’t.

He spent a restless night wondering how his old life was, what it was doing, and the way since he had occupied so many fruitless hours speculating on ways of getting rid of it completely. Furthermore, he should be in the least concerned now that it has gone off its own way.

There was a period of quiet, even happiness, which lasted over many days. He could still recall the court and divorce proceedings. His mind could wander away from them. Often, indeed, it could wander into its own fantasies. He sometimes finds an intimate world of his own fabricated by himself by wandering. And he sometimes thinks that all life is a series of events: dramas, traumas, with a sprinkling of happiness thrown in to keep us on the straight and narrow.

7

The news of divorce reached his fellow’s ears and everyone he had known; and spread in every corner he stepped in the city and in school. A few who are the allies and standing beside him, particularly his parents and one or two fellows. The rest and enemies wished him death and miserable life. Because they give him to avert their culture and tradition.

A fortnight later, by chance, Sam met Nora Gabriel, 33, on the road. It was quite hot, and she was hurrying home. She made up her eyes and lips. When she saw it was his person, she smothered her face and remained uneasy. She was the only one who knew about the full episode of her brother affair story with Jasmine. She looks freaky. But she was conscious of any attempt from Sam to scrape about it. After greeting her, she asked, How is your mother?

My mother is unhappy to see her son being outcast by divorce. Did you know who spilled the beans about our divorce in school, in neighbours, in friends, and everywhere?

I don’t know, everyone and no one! She replied. Whenever he told her something, she opposed him. Her tendency in opposition is very strong. It seems as if she has an antonym adjective to use constantly.

I don’t understand, it seems that the idea is ambiguous, everyone and no one, could you explain it?

If I were you, I wouldn’t ask such a question with who in this case. The news of divorce, marriage, birth, and death, and imprisonment reach everyone’s ears without anyone who can spill the beans. The news of these subjects spread rapidly, like a storm in society.

That is another secret he said, quieting himself and wondering, but what’s the use of spreading news like these?

Some news is related to social punishment by slander, like the news of divorce and imprisonment, and some of them for happiness like the news of marriage and birth, and some of them for reconciliation and support like the news of death and accidents and calamities. She explained and added, for instance, when somebody tells a secret of somebody to another person, he just shows himself superior and better than him or wants revenge on him in most cases.

Isn’t that an intervention in one’s privacy, which is an untouchable and sanctity?

People around the world like to gossip in such a way, no one can stop them.

8

Nora is the sister of Jasmine’s lover and an intimate woman friend of hers. She seemed a bit preoccupied. Her brother was the first one who had deflowered Jasmine at the age of fourteen. Sam being persuaded to get into this groove of love has no sense. But Nora seemed to be scared of falling into it. He felt that she must hate him for some reason or something he had done. As she sensed that, Sam knew that was an affair between them. She had the word ‘love’ inside the heart groove tattooed on her left arm. The tattoo has spoiled her natural beauty, and demonstrates that something goes wrong in her mind. She knew Jasmine’s privacy. Would she denounce her, that she has been deflowered by her brother? Could she say that Jasmine had been his first love since she was fourteen years old? She had complete proof of that story. It would seem, however, that to expect such proof of deflowering from an alleged entity is hardly a breach of the rules of etiquette and good breeding. It will be a breach of the rules of the game if she denounces her. Sam realized that if she wants to keep a secret, she must also hide it from herself.

How can I reveal to a stranger what I have told any living person, or what he has told me, except my husband, or relatives, or friends? This fear is a common feature to all of us, She affirmed.

The truth will come out one day, he replied. But Nora, as a respected lady, does not to fail to tell the truth as she understands it. For Sam, the related information of deflowering is self-evidence of her brother’s affair. Sam doesn’t trust the tattooed people. There is something odd in his behaviour.

Jasmine had told me that the cause and reasons of your divorce were financial problems. She said that life is not just eating and sleeping and making love and wondered, Where is their housing and its accommodation, cars, and even the driving license? Where are the best clothes and rich foods? If he was satisfied with this mode of life, that wouldn’t be as simple as he called it. And she added that she didn’t stay in that narrow-hired house. She wanted to live a luxurious life. she said and wondered, What was wrong?"

The main reason is your brother. I began to believe that he was behind the whole plot. As for the financial reasons, I was the only one who ever gave her support and money, and this is all she can do in return go running after another man and whining to me about not knowing what she wants.

I didn’t know who was behind this plot or what you were talking about!

I suspect that she was deflowered by one of her keens. Maybe your brother or her father or even her uncle. I overtook this matter. The majority of women in Europe and elsewhere were deflowered before being married. That’s not a problem. What is going wrong is the incompatible mentality of our imagination or conception about marriage.

The half which had connected to me has never been, so it has sickened and rotted and turned black. He declared bitterly, the half in which I had identified for fifteen years was gone because it was incompatible. It’s like someone who destroys your world at once. Her lover was an intruder like a virus. Sam knew who she was now quite well. She was intrigued. He never realized that there is a romanticism to space that appeals to a woman. Any woman would protect her lover. He realized that, in marrying twice, he would simply exchange one cage for another.

Nora had once read Madame Bovary, and she had committed to memory several lines: her innermost heart was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned a despairing gaze of the solitude of her life, seeking some white sail in the far mists of the horizon … But nothing happened to her; God willed it so! The future was a dark corridor, with its door at the end shut fast. And afterward, she always thought that she knew Emma Bovary better than she knew any woman friend in Tangier

And yet, still, she would not allow herself to believe that the future was her entire life, her life’s new direction, but rather she regarded it as a finite episode that was temporarily the only living part of her life. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face_ forever, she said to herself planning her existence in life, whatever the future holds, I will learn to live with it. The search for elixir exceedingly went on.

Perhaps the search was really a kind of waste of time, in which the process was. The calculation was wrong. Perhaps it was a kind of quest; the quest for eternal youth, Sam replied and added, If you want a picture of the future, you must start from the present. In most cases, the future and the past are vague.

Likewise, what was the point of my constant round of alternating losses, this constant cycle of desire and reluctance and desire? She wondered

There is only one bondage, namely, that caused by desire. He who is free from this bondage, and he who restrains his senses, who is constantly in self-exploration, is a one who is liberated: he is distinguished above all others, and derives his joys from the self alone.

In the common walks of life, with what delightful emotions does the old life look forward to some anticipated scene of festivity! Sam replied

From this and other conversations, Nora learned that it was to meddle with the affairs of others, and she was honest enough to admit her faults. Sam, the man who had been her unsparing critic; at last warned her to make an end to her behaviour. After she has three children, she is about to give birth to another baby. They always insist on accompanying her wherever she goes. The little boy lagged behind the older boys.

9

Now, Nora tried to give him lessons, just to push him away from the real problem that’s his brother Farid who played a great role in this game of mouse and cat before and after his marriage with Jasmine. He was the devil behind paradise. This time, she kept her voice devoid of emotion.

Provided you dress right and behave in the right way, the majority would accept you at face value. It was one of the most useful lessons of my daily life, she said obliquely and added, Nowadays, of course, it was an advert for how much you earned and that made things worse.

"And what had we found behind the gracious facade? Crouching creatures fighting human cancer that infest, not only in Tangier but everywhere, stagnation and dry rot of the brain, famine of the heart, and the airless dying of the soul. Everywhere? He wondered.

Behind this gracious facade you can find an ordeal …

Whatever form of human organization we consider, she argues, from the family to the nation, or the nation to a world community, the fundamental aggressiveness in man which desires the death of others will threaten and may, in the long run, break it, she said.

It’s a paradox that actions contradict words …

What kind of world are we creating? He wondered and affirmed, It’s a sick world we’re living in, a world where new relationships and new standards are brought to bear in the most devastating ways. It was made up of mechanical people. Outside the self and home, what was there in the world, just worshiping materialism, and conflict between the humans. The human side of politics is getting stronger.

Many years ago, someone asked the spiritual Master, Saint Scholar Gianni Niranjan, all the chaos in this world, who is responsible for it? The Master replied, 2 classes of people who live by the principle of divide and rule. One is politicians and the other preachers. According to that affirmation, Sam saw that this world of today tended to extend itself like a dirty swamp and glowed with strange mobs and dregs. But his earnestness seemed to be strangely remote at times. Things change so quickly that he never knows what will happen from one day to the next. There is a general belief that things will soon get better. But the changes often appeared to be the worst, and indeed were so frequently enough. The burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world’s sorrow is too heavy for one heart to suffer.

Sam was convinced with the idea that, one must first suffer to find true wisdom and to gain experience. And wondered, do some people experience more interaction than others?

Yet through all these experiences there remained the final core that was himself, something beyond his mind and his visions, beyond his nature even, something little more than cry, but it remained until at last it, too, to be menaced. Severe illness, things that are biologically or in a broad sense personal crisis disrupting altering situations, may encourage psychic experiences.

There is an inevitable sadness about everyone. But to have company in misery seemed something to be grateful for. For a truth, pain is the tort of this world, nor is anyone who escapes from its net. Antonio Portia said, I believe that the soul consists of its sufferings …. But Stoicism put it_ the pain like this, the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.

Stoicism was an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Kit ion. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine reason, also identified with Fate and providence that govern nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain. For him, it was a duty to encourage providence.

Sam remarked that all around him suffered from pain in some way or another: the pain of loss; the pain that torture the psyche and threaten the security. One thing or another that relates/belongs to psychological memory. With psychological pain, we can understand that it is merely an illusion resulting from a bad temper. You can put an end to physical pain not physical pain by medicine, but the pain of the psyche that becomes daunting and one finds it difficult to get rid of it. If I am free from the pain, there will be no pain anywhere, he said to himself.

That’s right, but there is still an ambiguity in the expression. That matches the psychological side. There are two different kinds of pain: physical and psychological. It’s easy to free yourself from physical pain, but it is hard when it comes to psychological pain.

"So, how could we explain the psychological pain? Is it a screen resistance of the mind that defines the nature of