Steemit Challenge S26-w2| Mysterious Roommate

Hello steemians,

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I met him on a Monday in August, when the heat put the Medina to sleep and the brik seller at Bab Bhar shouted, “ħot harissa!” Ronnie wore a new chechia, too red to be real, and the smile of a trader who has already sold before he opens his mouth. He said he’d come to “launch an import–export in olive oil and Sejnane pottery,” that sharing my room would help him “keep cash for the paperwork.” His voice smelled of mint tea, his sentences of the sand of too many countries. I showed him where to put his suitcases, by the window over Avenue de la Liberté.

That evening he talked to me about ports and prices. “CIF La Goulette for the containers, you see?” he tossed out. I raised an eyebrow: containers mean Radès. La Goulette is ferries, families, and ice cream that’s too sweet. He went on: “I also have to handle certificates… the COT, I think.” I heard myself chuckle. We say COI for olive oil, not COT. The mistakes scraped my ear like a badly tuned oud.

Two nights later, coming home earlier than planned, I heard a clink under the bed. Ronnie pulled out a black bag, rough as an old Kairouan rug: bolt cutters, a saw, a silent drill, a bunch of skeleton keys, a magnifying glass, and a small flat gun. He looked up. Our eyes met, the ‘Isha prayer poured from Sidi Mahrez mosque, and the jasmine on the sill started to smell like gunpowder.

“Are you stealing zelliges or saving them?” I asked, my voice calmer than my heart.

He set the saw down. “I recover.”

“For whom?”

“For those who shouldn’t have to buy what was stolen from their own home.”

He stood, hung his chechia on the back of a chair. “You caught my mistakes on purpose. Radès, COI… I always leave a few so someone sharp will ask the question. You asked it.”

I didn’t know whether to call the police, an imam, or my mother. He waved me to the balcony. Below, an improvised crew of kids clapped to the beat of a mezoued, and the smell of grilled fish rose from the avenue.

“Listen,” he said. “Tomorrow, a Punic statue goes through a hangar in Radès. It comes from a La Marsa villa emptied by a rushed heir. We’ll slide it to the Bardo before it disappears toward Genoa. I have to open one door, two padlocks, and a safe. You can turn me in or hold the light.”

“And the little gun?”

“In case someone confuses art with livestock. I prefer to run.”

I didn’t sleep. The ceiling tiles lined up like soldiers. At dawn, the bambalouni seller banged his pan. I thought of the Bardo, of mosaics that tell our seas better than anyone, of the Sejnane artisans who fire clay in the smoke of dry herbs, of hands that lose when money speaks too loud.

Next day I climbed onto his old motorbike, the helmet smelling of leather and cumin. We skirted the lake, flamingos like pink commas. Radès rose in the crash of containers. He walked fast, sure of the shadows. In front of the hangar he muttered, “If they left an Abus lock, it’ll be almost a song.”

Everything went like a song until the second padlock. Footsteps in the dust, a raincoat’s whisper. Ronnie tossed me the torch. “Kill the light if voices get loud.” A guard came in, yawned on the wrong side of his mustache. “What are you doing here?” I answered with an imaginary mouthful of harissa, “Delivering spare parts for the pallet jack; if Sidi— your boss—signed, it’s at the office.” The guard shrugged, pulled out a cigarette, said, “After coffee.” He stepped out.

“You play it well,” Ronnie breathed. The drill finished its lullaby. Inside, a safe. He pressed his ear, stroked the dial. “Four digits. Lots of people choose their wedding year. Too much sentiment in the underworld.” He rolled through: 1987, 1999, 2006. Nothing. Sweat beaded; the mezoued of my heart sped up. “Try 2011,” I said. “Here, even thieves remember.” The latch clicked like applause.

The wrapping cloth revealed a little terracotta goddess, arm raised, mouth like a secret. Ronnie finally smiled. “This is the one they call Little Rain. People put her in the window when the sky went silent.” His eyes watered. “No one should buy this by the kilo.”

Footsteps returned. The guard, this time with another man. Salt gathered on my tongue. Ronnie stowed the gun, handed me the wrapped figurine. “Run to the east door, the bike’s ready. If they catch me, I never said Radès instead of La Goulette.” He sprang the other way. The men shouted; I ran. The sun tore at my eyes. The bike started like a jackal. I didn’t see Ronnie come out.

At the Bardo, I waited for a bespectacled woman who signed a receipt on a blank sheet. “It will be inventoried,” she said. “We’ll say it found its way.” That evening I opened our door; the chechia was no longer on the chair. In its place, a packet of Kairouan makroud and a note: “Never confuse your country with a marketplace. Thanks for 2011. R.”

I still keep, in a tea glass, a sprig of dried jasmine. On nights when the city trembles, I stir it and the scent rises, sharp as harissa. Sometimes, at the corner of rue d’Espagne, I glimpse a figure walking fast, too fast for a merchant. Then I smile: Ronnie was neither thief nor saint. He was what you become here when you refuse to sell the rain. And that’s enough to lose a roommate and recover something we thought already exported: the part of us that says no.

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Thank you very much for reading, it's time to invite my friends @sualeha, @drhira, @shiftitamanna to participate in this contest.

Best Regards,
@kouba01