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I was a princess in the court of the king.... Then he put me and
my family in jail for 20 years. By Malika Oufkir, with an introduction by
Amy Wilentz
Malika Oufkir tosses her fur coat onto the bed in her midtown Manhattan hotel
room. She’s elegant, slender, and quite beautiful, but, as she says, "I am not
normal."
In truth, there is almost nothing normal about Oufkir. More than four years after she left
Morocco, where she and her mother and brothers and sisters spent 20 years in prison,
Oufkir still panics when she is out in the open. She craves quiet, dark rooms where she
can be alone. New York frightens her. She hates crowds. She likes to eat alone, in
silence.
"If I talk about it too much, think about it too much, I could become crazy or have a
very violent reaction," Oufkir says of the time she spent in Bir-Jdid prison for a
crime in which everyone knew she had taken no part. She was just 19 when her father, a
powerful Moroccan general, led a failed coup against King Hassan II; the monarch
immediately ordered General Oufkir’s execution and banished his widow and six
children, Malika, Myriam ("Mimi"), Maria, Soukaina, Raouf, and three-year-old
Abdellatif, into internal exile.
Shuttled from prison to prison for five years, Oufkir and her family were eventually
dispatched to Bir-Jdid, a prison barrack near Casablanca. Locked in separate cells around
a central corridor, unable to see one another, Oufkir and her siblings spent their youth
in Bir-Jdid, plagued by insects, vermin, and brutal deprivation.
"Hassan enjoyed keeping us in prison, starving us, freezing us, leaving us without
beds or sheets or medical care. I think he took pleasure in it every day," Oufkir
tells me, as if speaking of something that is both vaguely remote and entirely present.
"He could have killed us. But he preferred to have us die slowly."
Desperately—and miraculously—Oufkir and her family defied the fate Hassan
intended for them when, using a spoon and a sardine can lid, they dug their way to freedom
In heart-stopping and suspenseful portions of Stolen Lives, Oufkir’s remarkable
memoir, she recounts the days she and three of her siblings spent racing from embassy to
embassy, attempting to gain political asylum after their escape from Bir-Jdid. The
outcasts, now fugitives, faced unspeakable retribution if discovered. Hollow-faced,
destitute, dressed in 15-year-old rags, they hitchhiked across Morocco, seeking help from
former friends who, fearing the king, again and again turned them away. After five days on
the lam, they succeeded in getting a hotel guest to phone Alain de Chalvron, a French
radio reporter in Paris. "An incredible scoop," said de Chalvron, who alerted
the French embassy to the Oufkirs’ plight. Once their story was out, the condemnation
of the international community made it impossible for Hassan to punish the family;
Moroccan authorities nonetheless managed to keep them under house arrest for another three
and a half years.
Even before her family’s exile and escape, Oufkir led an extraordinary life. Born
into an affluent and powerful family, she was chosen—at age five—by King
Muhammad V to be a companion to his own small daughter, Princess Lalla Mina. The king
moved Oufkir into a villa near the palace that she shared with his daughter. After three
years Muhammad died, and his son Hassan II inherited the throne and guardianship of both
Lalla Mina and Oufkir. Like his father, Hassan lavished attention and kindness on the
girls and retained a strict German governess to ensure that they would be raised properly.
Oufkir fondly recalls sitting around the piano, singing and dancing and otherwise enjoying
good times with Lalla Mina and the new king. For 11 years Oufkir lived a sumptuous, if
sheltered, life among Moroccan royalty, leaving the palace only occasionally for spa trips
and ski vacations.
At 16, she says, Oufkir hungered for a taste of real life and at last prevailed on the
king to let her return to her own father and mother. She looked forward to life as a
normal person—and to falling in love. But she didn’t get the chance. Three years
later her father attempted a coup against Hassan II, the man who had raised her for eight
years. It was Hassan who would banish her family to prison.
Traces of both the prisoner and the princess Oufkir has been are evident as we speak;
there is a regal quality to her great grace and poise, but there is no mistaking the
haunted look in her eye. "I wrote the book in a crashing hurry," she says softly
of Stolen Lives. "My friends could not understand why. I told them, ‘If this is
published after Hassan dies, it would be terrible. Through his sister he invited me back
to the palace. But I refused. He did not want me to talk, to write. With this book I
defied him." Hassan II died five months after Oufkir’s gripping, remorseless
memoir was published (under the title La Prisonnière) in France — where it quickly
became a best-seller.
Today, Oufkir lives in Paris with her husband, a French architect raised in Lebanon who is
fluent in Arabic and whom she met at a Moroccan wedding eight years after her escape from
Bir-Jdid. Unable to bear children because of an infection she suffered while in prison,
she acts as head of her extended family; Abdellatif, the brother who was incarcerated as a
toddler and is now deeply wounded by his stunted, aberrant childhood, lives with her, as
does her sister Myriam.
At 47, Oufkir has found the freedom — and love — she craved so desperately for
so long. But it has not brought comfort. "I don’t know what it means to be
free," she says. "It is easier to be a prisoner." There is no self-pity as
she explains how difficult it is for her to live in Paris. "Every day I suffer.
I’m surviving, not living. I want to be like everyone else. I try, but I can’t.
There are two decades of prison between me and the world." She draws her hunter-green
suede jacket close around her slender frame.
"Anyway, I do not really want happiness, because that would deny my experience. I am
like a person who has lost a limb and tries to act normal. They can’t. Neither can I.
I have arms and legs, but inside something has changed." The strength and resolve
that enabled Oufkir to survive are visible on her face, as is the fragility that is the
legacy of her ordeal. "Prison stole the best things from me. Yet my experience is so
rich. Prison was a detour, the way in which I managed to avoid mediocrity. Without it I
would be a normal woman, with money and power. But inside? Nothing.
In the following exclusive excerpt from Stolen Lives Oufkir chronicles her life in a
Moroccan prison and describes the family’s death-defying escape. —Amy Wilent
the great escape: an exclusive excerpt from stolen live
It was around four o’clock on August 16, 1972, and I was at my family’s house in
Casablanca with some friends, talking and laughing in the living room. Prompted by an
intuition I can’t explain, I switched on the television. A newscaster was announcing
that there had been a coup d’état and that the king’s plane had been fired on.
It was unclear who was responsible.
I rushed over to the radio, frantic for more news yet dreading what I might hear: that it
was my father who was behind the coup. He was a powerful general in the Moroccan army and
had been at increasing odds with the king, Hassan II. But information on the radio was
hazy too. No one seemed to know anything for certain. There was only speculation that my
father, General Oufkir, was involved and that the coup had succeeded. Order had not yet
been restored in the capital.
One of my friends, though, was convinced my father was involved. She got up and pointed at
me, hysterically babbling that the army would surround us, that I would be killed and so
would they. She urged everyone to leave at once. I sat, terrified, not knowing what to do.
I tried calling my mother and brothers and sisters at our house in Rabat; the lines were
busy or there was no answer.
Around seven o’clock the phone rang. It was my father. He spoke with the voice of a
man who has decided to commit suicide and is recording his last message. It was as if a
ghost was talking to me. He told me he loved me and that he was proud of me. Then he
added, "I ask you to remain calm, whatever happens. Don’t leave the house until
the escort comes to get you."
I began to scream. He kept saying things I didn’t want to hear. I wanted him to
reassure me, to tell me it hadn’t been him. But from the start of our conversation I
understood it was. And that he had failed.
I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t stop thinking about my father’s last words
— his warning not to leave. Something terrible had happened. Around 5 a.m. the next
day the phone rang again. It was my mother. Without hesitating she confirmed what I was
most afraid to hear: "Your father is dead. Pack your things and come back to
Rabat."
Four months later, once the official mourning period for my father had ended, the head of
police arrived at our house and told my mother to get the family packed. We left on
Christmas Eve — my mother, her six children, and Achoura and Halima, two loyal
members of the household staff. Mother had just turned 36. I was 19, my sister Mimi was
17, my brother Raouf 14, and the girls, Maria and Soukaina, were just 10 and nine. My baby
brother Abdellatif was three and a half.
We were told we would be going away for two weeks. We would never really return.
Our first jail was a filthy mud house of flaking plaster walls and sand floors — part
of an army barracks in Assa, a town near the Algerian border. I found everything there
repulsive, from the coarse military blankets to the thin foam mattresses to the lack of
proper toilets. All nine of us shared the small house together and were under constant
surveillance. But by and large the guards showed us sympathy. We could listen to the radio
and were given plenty of bread, goat meat, and honey to eat. We were also allowed to go
into the nearby town with a police escort for two hours every day. I refused to go —
I did not want to be dependent on our captors’ goodwill — but the visits were
very important for the children. The escorts always treated them very well, and the
villagers would send them back with cakes and treats.
Fundamentally this was not much of a change from our past life. As far back as I could
remember, I had never lived without several armed police responsible for my safety. The
only difference here was that instead of protecting me they were keeping watch. My life
was a fairy tale in reverse. I had been brought up as a princess and was now turning into
Cinderella. Gradually I was shedding my old habits. We had brought around 20 designer
suitcases with us — Vuitton, Hermès, and Gucci — filled with Paris couture and
children’s clothes from Geneva, but the idea of wearing any of it soon became
ludicrous. After a few months we always wore the same old clothes.
After about a year we were told that we’d be leaving. There was no explanation, but
on thinking about it a little later I concluded that the villagers must have been growing
too sympathetic toward us and word of this had gotten back to the king.
We were taken to an abandoned military fort in Tamattaght, a town even more remote than
Assa. There conditions were dramatically worse. The nine of us were given two rooms inside
an old and crumbling fort. There was a hole that served as a toilet, and a little dirt
enclave we used as a kitchen. A small but mostly enclosed outdoor space provided us with
our only fresh air. This would be our home for almost four years.
As at Assa, we were generally well treated. Of the 25 policemen under orders to guard us
day and night, around three-quarters had previously done security duty at our house in
Rabat. They had known my father, directly or indirectly. They respected my mother and
loved us children in a paternal way. When they could, they would bring us contraband food
as well as occasional books and letters. But they could never let us out, which meant that
while we were there, enclosed in the fort’s towering walls, we almost never saw
anything but the smallest patch of sky.
And so we learned to live together. In wretched, cramped, filthy conditions — in
darkness, isolation, and confinement. We tried to impose a structure on our days. We would
al-ways eat three meals a day together, and sit down for tea. I also created an informal
school for the children, setting up "classes" in which to teach them French and
math.
It was difficult for all of us, increasingly so. Raouf was not yet over the loss of his
father, at an age when a boy probably needs his father most. Soukaina was entering a moody
adolescence. Maria was extremely fragile — when something upset her she often would
not eat, speak, or move for hours. As for Mimi, she was in the most difficult straits of
all. She had epilepsy, and though the guards were able to sneak drugs to her, the stress
of prison caused her fits to increase anyway. Abdellatif adapted to it most readily.
At night I’d hear my mother sobbing. Alone in her bed, she wept over the loss of her
husband. As for me, especially during those early years in prison, I dreamed only of the
king, Hassan II. I relived my life at the palace: my pranks, our laughter, my
tête-à-têtes with him, our special moments. I never revisited happy family scenes, or
painful ones — my father’s death or the mourning that followed it. There was no
resentment in my dreams, no confrontation or rebellion. I had nothing but happy memories
of my childhood, even though in a sense it had been stolen from me. I would wake up
overcome with shame and guilt. My feelings toward the king were complicated: My own father
had tried to kill my adoptive father and as a result he was dead. Sometimes I didn’t
know which father I missed most, which one to grieve for. I was the product of my palace
upbringing; everything I was, I owed to the man who had raised me and who was now keeping
me imprisoned. At the same time I loved my real father so much.
But if I still respected Hassan II as my adoptive father, I hated the despot he had become
the day he began to persecute us. I hated him for his hatred, I hated him for my ruined
life, for my mother’s misery and the mutilated childhood of my brothers and sisters.
I hated him for the irreparable crime he had committed in locking up a woman and six
children for such a long time and in such inhuman conditions.
We continually implored Hassan to release us. Every year on his birthday we wrote letters.
We even wrote him a petition for a pardon, signed in our blood.
Then one day, after almost four years in Tamattaght, we were told to pack. The children
were glad. The rest of us were torn between hope and dread.
Our next journey lasted 24 hours. The nine of us were divided into three armored trucks
with blacked-out windows. We were under constant surveillance and could not even find a
discreet spot when we got out to relieve ourselves; the police came with us and watched
until we had finished. It was February. As we drove, I noticed the air beginning to smell
damp and the sound of frogs croaking so I concluded that we had left the desert and were
now near the coast. It turns out I was not mistaken. The Bir-Jdid barracks, where we were
being taken, were 27 miles from Casablanca. This we discovered much later.
Finally the trucks slowed to a halt. We were blindfolded and led through one door and then
through another. The blindfolds were removed, and we found ourselves in the small
courtyard of what seemed to be a former farmhouse — now converted to a prison. The
walls of the enclosure were so high that we couldn’t see the sky. Soldiers stood at
arms in each corner.
Four doors opened onto the courtyard. The rooms behind them, we were told, would be our
cells. The first, which Mother was to share with Abdellatif, was at right angles to the
other three. The second I would share with my sisters. Achoura and Halima would share the
third, and Raouf would be alone in the cell on the end. Each of the cells included several
little rooms. Ours included a main room with a toilet, one larger room, and a smaller
room, where we would end up storing the suitcases we were still lugging around.
The appearance of these new quarters did not bode well for our future comfort. Even though
we were already accustomed to discomfort, filth, and minimal amenities, these cells were
squalid. Rivulets of moisture ran from the ceiling down to the stone floor. The only light
would be dim, coming from a generator that operated a few hours each night. The mattresses
were just thin layers of foam with covers of dubious cleanliness set on rusty metal bed
frames.
Right away we were told that we would be separated at night. We would be allowed to see
each other during the day and to eat together, but at night each person would have to go
back to his or her own cell. This news made us all sob. Mother cried and pleaded, saying
they didn’t have the right to separate her from her children. But we were told that
these rules could not be relaxed.
Under this new regime, from eight in the morning until nightfall the doors were unlocked
and we could go in and out of one another’s cells. Generally we all gathered in mine.
This freedom of movement allowed us to carry on the routines we’d grown used to
— we would cook and eat together, and play with the children during the day. But here
our lives were much more closely monitored. And unlike our former captors, those at
Bir-Jdid showed us little sympathy. The commander, a man named Borro, was utterly devoid
of compassion and seemed to take his orders directly from Rabat. Four other guards worked
under his command — they would be rotated every month or so, apparently to prevent
them from developing any sympathy for us. Outside our small prison, we were informed, even
more guards were stationed. They would stop anyone from coming to help us.
Inside the prison walls Mother, Raouf, and I seemed to be the guards’ main concern.
Mother because she was the wife of the hated general, me because they were aware of my
influence over the rest of the family, and Raouf because he was his father’s son and
it was natural that he would want to avenge him. Of us all it was Raouf who suffered the
most physically, who took the most knocks. I lived with a permanent fear in the pit of my
stomach: fear of being killed, beaten, or raped; fear of constant humiliation. But we were
never seriously beaten — only Raouf.
The first search took place at the beginning of April, two months after our arrival. The
aim was to intimidate us. Borro’s men locked us up in Raouf’s cell until
nightfall. Inside we could hear dull thuds, the sound of hammering. When we were finally
allowed out, the damage was impressive. They had gathered our most valued belongings
— our trinkets and books, Abdellatif’s toys, much of our clothing, Mother’s
jewelry, and my photo album — and had lit a huge bonfire with everything that was
combustible. (We took the fact that they did not burn our luggage as a small sign of hope:
Someday we would be leaving.) The children were all the more traumatized when Borro
forcibly searched Soukaina, who was only 13. Afterward she ran a high temperature for 10
days.
Then, on January 30, Raouf’s 20th birthday, we were informed that he would be locked
up for all but two hours a day. A few days later my sisters and I met the same fate. Next
it was Mother and Abdellatif. During this phase we were allowed to go out into the
courtyard for a breath of air, but only in shifts. Mother and Abdellatif went out in the
morning until 10; then it was my turn, with my sisters. We would stand under Raouf’s
window, he’d cling to the bars, and we’d chat. He was so desperate to express
himself that he would monopolize the conversation. He would talk about our father and his
longing to avenge him. And about sex. He suffered far more than we did from our forced
abstinence and would tell the girls stories of his early trips to prostitutes —
accepted practice for bourgeois boys in Morocco — that would have them howling with
laughter.
After a few months, however, even these brief hours outside were forbidden. We were all
locked up 24 hours a day.
I was 24 years old, and for the next nine years the only faces I saw were those of my
sisters and the guards. My mother, Abdellatif, Raouf, and Halima and Achoura were mere
voices through a wall. For more than five years we had managed to preserve a family life,
a cocoon in which we protected each other. At Bir-Jdid, family life was out of the
question. Everything was out of the question.
Once we were confined to our cells, our lives became completely regulated by the guards.
They stopped by three times a day to bring us meal trays, and at midday to give us bread.
For the first few months my sisters and I clung to a semblance of a timetable. In the
morning we would exercise — I concocted a "bums and tums" workout, and we
tossed a bag of rags around as a makeshift volleyball. In the afternoon we told stories.
Later we gave up physical activity. Our bodies no longer responded; we just sat around.
Our biggest enemy was time. It was tangible, monstrous, threatening, and almost impossible
to master. In the summer, dusk brought back memories of the sweetness of the old days, the
end of a day at the beach, time for an aperitif, the laughter of friends, the smell of the
sea, the tang of salt on my bronzed skin. I relived the little I had experienced. We
didn’t do anything. We’d follow the progress of a cockroach from one hole in the
wall to another. Doze. Empty our minds. The sky would change color and the day draw to a
close. A week felt like a day, the months like weeks; a year meant nothing. And I was
wasting away. I learned to die inwardly. I often had the feeling I was living in a black
hole.
Despite everything, my sisters and I got along well. The lack of privacy was torture,
especially for two young women and two teenage girls. Washing, going to the toilet, and
moaning in pain were all public acts — but we quickly got used to it. Unable to
divest myself of my palace upbringing, I wouldn’t allow the slightest breach of
manners. We behaved properly at the table, we chewed delicately, we said please and thank
you and excuse me. We washed ourselves scrupulously every day, especially when we had our
periods, despite the freezing salt water we were given in the middle of winter that turned
our skin bright red and made us shriek.
And we were always hungry. Rotting vegetables, two bowlfuls of flour, a bowl of chick
peas, a bowl of lentils, 12 bad eggs, a piece of spoiled meat, a few lumps of sugar, a
liter of oil, and some detergent for washing — this was what was divided between the
nine of us for two weeks. Achoura and Halima would prepare what they could with the meager
supplies, and then the guards would distribute it.
We became experts in the art of salvage, scavenging for crumbs on the floor, even eating
bread soaked in the urine and feces of the mice. I can still picture Mimi, sitting up in
bed, picking off the little black droppings sprinkled all over the bread with the delicacy
of a duchess, before raising the morsels to her lips. All our rations were fouled by
rodents. Both mice and rats overran our cell.
We all could have died 20 times over, but every time we emerged unscathed. Some of our
illnesses were serious: fevers, infections, diarrhea. Others were less so: sore throats
and bronchitis, headaches or toothaches, hemorrhoids, rheumatism. Maria became severely
undernourished. She suffered fevers and violent sweats that were so bad that she stayed in
bed all the time. I had to wash and dry her four or five times a day. Mimi was the sickest
of us all. The guards at Bir-Jdid had confiscated her epilepsy pills, and her constant
fits left her exhausted, bedridden, and severely depressed. She stayed in bed almost
without moving for eight years. I had to force her to wash.
But more than anything else, the worst thing about those years was being separated from
our mother, only a few feet away. We spoke to her constantly through the wall, and she was
an example to all of us. She never expressed the slightest complaint, yet she must have
suffered even more than we did.
Since the day I was born, my relationship with Mother had never been less than passionate
and heartbreaking. We were incredibly close in age — she was 17 when I was born
— and shared a striking physical resemblance. We had also each seen our chance to be
fulfilled as women savagely destroyed. The thought that I might not ever have children
distressed her.
In prison, however, there was a growing ambiguity in our roles. Unwittingly, and against
my will, I had usurped her role. I had become the mother of her other daughters. I can
still picture Maria and Soukaina snuggling up to me in my bed, questioning me about the
meaning of life. They told me all the secrets they would never have told Mother, first of
all because at that age you don’t confide in your mother, and secondly because they
were separated from her by a solid wall.
I looked after them, brought them up, and tried to keep them from despair. I was their big
sister, their mother, father, and confidante. I loved them more than anything else and,
like Mother, I suffered a lot more for them than I did for myself. I remember instigating
dancing lessons in the cell because Maria was crying over her shattered dream of being a
ballet student at the Paris Opera. I remember nursing Mimi and telling stories to
Abdellatif through the wall.
Yet throughout it all I always waited impatiently for nightfall, for the peace it brought
me. During the day I wore a mask: I was Malika the strong one, the authoritarian, the
person who breathed life into the others. At night there was nothing to do but think. As
soon as dusk fell I dropped my defenses. When my sisters fell asleep at last, I would
often get up and just sit.
I often wondered why Hassan II had imposed this long-drawn-out death instead of killing us
right away. Our disappearance would have made matters much simpler. I thought about my
father, too. Each time I pictured him I imagined the moment of his execution. That
terrible moment when he realized that he was going to be killed like a dog. I swung
between humiliation, pain, and rage.
And each of my birthdays was like a dagger piercing my heart. At the age of 33 I became
resigned. I would never experience a great love, I would never have my own family, no man
would ever take me in his arms and whisper sweet nothings or words of burning passion in
my ear; I would never know the physical and mental thrill of being in love. Instead I was
condemned to wither like a wrinkled fruit. At night I dreamed I was making love, but I
learned not to think about it. I could not burden myself with these little troubles when I
had so many others. I tried to remain in control of my body, to suppress everything to do
with desire, hunger, cold, and thirst.
Despite her courage and dignity, Mother was still very naive. She firmly believed that we
would be pardoned on March 3, 1986, for Throne Day, the anniversary of the king’s
ascension to the throne. Yet the day came and nothing happened. The next morning, however,
it seemed she might be right. At about 8:30 the guards unlocked all our doors and shoved
us outside.
We staggered, squinting at the light. We were thrilled to see each other, but we looked
like walking corpses — gaunt and pale, with dark rings around our eyes, bloodless
lips, and bodies bloated from malnourishment. Mother didn’t even recognize her little
girls. She had last seen Soukaina and Maria when they were 14 and 15 years old. Now they
were young women of 22 and just 24. Raouf was a man, resembling my father in build.
Abdellatif was a youth of 17. Mother was as beautiful as ever, but the hardship and grief
had taken a terrible toll. Achoura and Halima had gray faces and hair, the color of ash.
We were overjoyed, yet we found ourselves torn between the natural urge to touch each
other and kiss and the determination not to show our tormentors how cruelly we had missed
this contact. So we restrained ourselves. Astonished, Borro encouraged us to approach one
another, then told us that, in celebration of Throne Day, from then on we would be allowed
to be together from 8:30 in the morning until 8 at night. We were being granted this
concession after 14 years in prison.
At first the elation of being reunited eclipsed the grimness of our situation. Mother
gazed at us for hours. She never tired of looking at us, but it must have been torture for
her to see us so emaciated, so starved. Nevertheless we had decided to relish every joyous
moment of being together again. To entertain ourselves we organized circus shows. Raouf
would crack a pretend whip, and Mimi, the elephant, would make her entrance. She was
painfully thin. When Raouf cracked his whip a second time, Mimi had to raise her legs in
the air. We shrieked with laughter. We never tired of joking, touching each other, and
embracing.
These relatively happy times lasted until the early signs of winter. Then one day, without
any explanation, the guards split us up again. The next morning they told Mother that we
would be locked up 24 hours a day as before.
She immediately went on a hunger strike in protest. The others, except for me, followed
suit. My body cannot tolerate fasting, so I merely ate as little as possible. For 45 days
we starved ourselves. Soukaina even tried going without water but after a day became too
ill. We were nothing but skin and bone and yet nothing happened. Nobody cared.
Then, sometime during the sixth week of fasting, Raouf overheard two guards talking
outside his cell. "This situation has ruined my life," one said. "I’m
ashamed to look my family in the eyes. I am haunted by what we are doing. Murdering
children is beyond me. I can’t carry on. What do they want?"
"Don’t you understand?" replied the other guard. "They are going to
die. All of them. And they will be buried here. We’ll just wait as long as we have
to. Those are our orders."
Raouf reported this conversation to us through the walls. Everyone was terribly feeble. We
all longed for death. Yet the words hit us like an electric shock. At some level we had
believed our release was coming, that the king could not punish us forever. Now we knew we
were simply expected to disappear. It was then that our will to live became overpowering.
We resolved to escape.
The first task was to decide where to dig. After endless discussion we decided to start
from the cell I shared with my sisters. One of the rooms was too cold to live or sleep in,
so we had ended up using it as a place to put all our old suitcases. The advantages to
this site were that it was unused during the day and that the floor’s stone slabs
were in good condition. This would make them much easier to maneuver. We would obviously
have to work at night, preferably during the hours when the generator was running in order
not to be heard.
On January 27,1987 — directly after one of our triweekly searches — Maria,
Soukaina, and I pried up the first stone slab with a spoon, a knife handle, the lid of a
sardine tin, and an iron bar from one of our beds. In two hours we had pried up eight
more.
For the next two weeks we did nothing but practice removing and replacing these slabs so
that any sign they had been touched would be undetectable. Meanwhile, Mother, Abdellatif,
Raouf, Halima, and Achoura worked on creating passages between all the cells. This was
probably the most dangerous part of the plan, but it was crucial for two reasons. First,
to escape, the others would all have to get from their cells to ours. Second, as we were
soon to learn, we would need their help as we dug. We found that by removing stones from
the walls under our beds we were able to create spaces large enough to squeeze through. We
were always scrupulous about closing the holes up each morning.
Finally my sisters and I started digging in earnest. Raouf had studied some engineering in
grade school and explained to me the various levels of soil I would find. When I reached
clay I was to start digging horizontally. Then, we estimated, it would take 16 feet to
clear the outside edge of the cell’s wall. We worked like robots. Down in the hole
I’d fill an empty one-gallon oil can with earth, which my sisters would then haul up
from above. Mimi would add water to the dirt, making it more dense, and she would hand it
through the wall to my mother. Mother would sew balls of the dirt up in old, unused
clothes and send them back through the wall. We would store these bundles in our tunnel to
keep it from sounding hollow during searches.
Demolishing and digging was easy. The hard part was reconstruction, which could take
hours. First we returned the bagged dirt to the hole. Then we spread a layer of red dirt
on top and replaced the stone slabs. To finish off, we filled the cracks with a fake
plaster made of detergent and flour we had saved from our rations. Once everything had
dried I would sweep it up.
We had some terrible scares. During the searches we would stay in our beds without
budging, pretending to be ill. The guards carried out a painstaking inspection, even in
the little room where the tunnel was. They shone their torches into corners, looking
everywhere — under the beds, at the ceiling, in the cavities. They tapped the floor
with their feet, listening for a different sound, the faintest echo. It is a miracle, but
they never set foot on the slabs we were digging under.
By April 18 I had tunneled down and out the agreed distance, and I stopped digging. I had
no nails left, my skin was covered with eczema, and my fingers were bleeding sores. We had
all agreed that the escape should be in December, on a moonless winter night when the
guards — who were sensitive to the cold, like all Moroccans — would be ensconced
in the snuggest corner of their watchtowers, their faces muffled by warm hoods. So we
sealed the tunnel one last time. Two weeks before the escape we would finish digging up
the few feet to the surface. Before that it would be too risky.
During the days when we were digging we held countless family consultations to decide who
would go, and what to do once outside. Raouf wanted to go alone — he was so afraid
for us all — but it was obvious that I would go with him. Maria had declared outright
that if we didn’t take her she would kill herself. We would also take Abdellatif, who
had seen nothing of life, who had no past bearings — he needed to be part of this
adventure. Mother wanted to come, but she was physically unable to do so. Her body was
bloated, like the rest of ours, and she couldn’t even squeeze through the hole
between our cell and hers. Only Abdellatif could wriggle through. We couldn’t enlarge
it for fear of breaking the tiles supporting the wall. Soukaina too agreed to stay behind
— a demonstration of her courage and generosity, as we needed her to seal up the
tunnel after we left. Mimi was simply too weak to do it. For the same reason it was
impossible for her to leave.
Once we got out, our goal was the French embassy, where we intended to request political
asylum. We tried to anticipate every possible setback. On the morning of our escape Mother
was to waylay the guards as long as possible, to stop them from raising the alarm
immediately. In case we were captured, she planned to cause an explosion with the little
butane stove Achoura and Halima had in their cell for cooking. We even started saving
pepper to fend off any stray dogs.
On Sunday, April 19, 1987, the day after we closed the tunnel, I was sitting on the floor
of the cell, my head leaning against a wall. We could hear birds chirping outside the
walls. Nature, like us, was awakening from a long sleep. We felt strangely well, despite
the prospect of several months’ wait. We had emerged from the tomb. At last we had
reason to hope.
Mimi lay in bed, the other two were cuddling up to me, and we were chatting
lightheartedly. Then I heard my mother calling to me. "Listen, Malika," she
whispered, "I overheard them. They have been given orders to build a lookout post and
a watchtower on the roof of the tunnel cell. The lookout post will be exactly in line with
the exit, and there’ll be floodlights."
"What will we do?"
"There is no choice," she said. "They will have finished in 48 hours. You
must dig the escape shaft straightaway and leave tonight."
I had any number of objections. Dig out in a few hours? It wasn’t possible. We
expected it to take a week.
But she wouldn’t listen. "It’s that or nothing," she repeated.
"If you don’t leave tonight, you will never get out. Tell Raouf."
Raouf agreed with my mother — we had no choice.
I started digging around midday, working furiously. The spoon wasn’t enough. If I
could have ripped out the earth with my teeth I would have. I dug, I scooped out the
earth, I no longer thought, I no longer existed, I had become a machine. Digging,
scooping, digging, scooping…
At one point I came across some deeply rooted ivy. I pulled with all my strength. For
hours I battled, digging upward against those roots, straining to pull them out.
And suddenly my field of vision turned blue. I had broken through.
It was the late afternoon sky, swept by a warm spring breeze that gently caressed my
cheek. I stood stock-still for a while, just clutching the ivy and looking out with one
eye. Weeping, I poked my head through. It was too beautiful. I was afraid of what I could
see. Freedom was so close that it frightened me. I rushed back up to tell the others. We
were almost there.
At nightfall it was time to say goodbye. Mother was distraught, wondering whether she
really ought to let us go. It was the only time I saw her waver. "I’m entrusting
my flesh and blood to you," she said to me. "I know that you are also their
mother. Promise me you’ll bring them back alive." Soukaina shivered. Her teeth
were chattering and her eyes were shining, but she didn’t shed a tear. She carried an
enormous responsibility. She had to cover all our tracks to delay the guards’
discovery of our escape for as long as possible. Mimi tenderly clasped me to her and
whispered in my ear, "I’m sure you’ll make it."
We dressed in silence, picked up our bundles, and one by one lowered ourselves down into
the tunnel. Abdellatif and Maria got through the exit without any difficulty. Raouf made
the earth shudder. We held our breath, but he managed to push through and free himself
without any damage. When it was my turn I managed to get my upper body through the exit
hole, but my hips became wedged. I couldn’t go any further. I was stuck. My bloated,
malnourished body was much too wide for the narrow opening.
Raouf encouraged me, whispering gently to calm me down, but I couldn’t. I was unable
to budge. I strained, I cried, I was drenched in perspiration. Then I heard Soukaina
behind me. "Malika, come back," she said. "You’re making too much
noise, they’ll hear you."
If I persisted I might get us all caught. But once again I summoned all my strength. It
was like a second birth. At last I pulled myself from the tunnel. I’d scraped off all
the skin on my thighs, but at the time I didn’t even notice.
We had been living in the shadows for so long that our eyes had grown accustomed to the
dark, and we gazed out at our surroundings without any sense of fear. On the contrary, we
were exhilarated. There was no sign of life from the guards’ quarters, and we began
to crawl across a damp field.
Suddenly we heard the barking of stray dogs. They were racing, making straight for us
— aggressive, starving, and more ferocious than watchdogs. There must have been about
10 of them, bounding through the dark behind the leader of the pack. They were getting
closer and closer. We could feel their panting breath. Once again we huddled together for
protection. Their leader came forward baring his fangs, growled, and looked poised to
attack. We froze and held our breath, waiting for a miracle. Which, improbable as it
seemed, is what we were granted. The dog gave an unfathomable whine, and he and his pack
slunk away.
But the reprieve did not last long. Alerted by the dogs, the guards turned their torches
and floodlights onto the field. We froze again, praying that we would melt into the
shadows. Certain of discovery this time, we waited there shivering for their shots to ring
out. We could hear the guards exchange a few words. At last the lights went off. We
crouched there, unable to move for what felt like hours; then we set off again.
We found ourselves in a field of beans, closer to the barracks side. We needed a short
rest, so we rolled over onto our backs and looked at the camp facing us for the first
time. It was a grim sight. So this was the place where we had spent 10 years of our lives,
where we had lost our best years, our hopes, our illusions, our health, and our youth. I
looked over at Abdellatif. For the first time in ages I realized just what a terrible
state he was in. He had been incarcerated since the age of three and a half. Now he was
18, and it was as though he had never been outside in his life. My sister Maria weighed
barely 66 pounds. Her huge dark eyes devoured her tiny, gaunt face. Raouf was as thin as
she was but bloated from water retention. He was pale and toothless.
Nearly 15 years had gone by, 15 years of torture that had scarred us terribly. But when I
studied the three of them closely I would catch an expression, mannerism, or smile that
reminded me of the children they had once been.
Locked up inside, we had tried to forget where we were. But now, in that field,
contemplating the place where we had suffered so much, the reality suddenly came home to
us. I couldn’t stop myself from sobbing. I wept even more when I thought of those we
had left behind. I was so afraid for them. My heart contracted and a shudder ran through
me. I heard the others crying softly; they all felt the same way.
After a while we got up and resumed walking. In the pitch dark, with no landmarks and no
signposts, we realized that we were going around in circles. It was as distressing as
being lost at sea or in the desert. There was nothing to give us any clue where the road
was, and none of us had a good sense of direction. Mother had taught me to read the stars,
but I must have been a very bad student. Despairing, I asked Abdellatif to guide us.
"We are adults," I said to him. "We may have committed sins, but not you.
You are so pure.… If there is a God, he’ll take pity on you. You will lead us to
freedom." We followed him without a word. Our bodies were aching and our clothes were
soaked through, but we had to keep going.
"Malika," Abdellatif called finally. "Come and see. There’s something
hard. I don’t know what it is."
I ran up to him. My younger brother didn’t know what asphalt was. The others joined
us, rolling and kissing the pavement. We were like astronauts, venturing their first steps
on the moon.
The Oufkirs were captured five days later. The entire family was then reunited and for the
next three and a half years lived under house arrest outside Marrakech. In 1991, King
Hassan II pardoned the Oufkirs and five years later issued them passports and visas. The
family now lives in Paris.
According to Amnesty International hundreds of political prisoners are still incarcerated
throughout Morocco; the Moroccan government admits that 56 political prisoners died in
Moroccan jails between 1960 and 1980.
Excerpted from STOLEN LIVES © 2001 by Malika Oufkir. Reprinted with permission from Talk Miramax Books. All rights reserved.
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