William Bayer - Tangier

When he returned to his office, hoping for a quarter hour's rest, he found a young man named Driss Bennani sitting before his desk.

"Fischer's dead," Driss announced. "He died in California ten days ago."

Achar lit a cigarette. "His heart?"

"I suppose so. His son didn't say. Just a note to tell me that he was dead and that he thought I ought to know."

"Well," said Achar, thinking back to the last time he'd examined Fischer in Tangier, "I'm very sorry to hear this, Driss. He was the only American I ever liked."

"He was a great man, Achar. I learned more about architecture in my year with him than from all the professors I ever had. He was a visionary. He knew that buildings were for people. An obvious truth, but not many people see it here."

Achar nodded. "Yes," he said, "Fischer had great plans for us. He was going to build us a great hospital, the best equipment, a place where we could really work. I suppose all that's out the window now-they're going to tear us down, I hear, and put up skyscrapers in our place."

"Not quite yet," said Driss. "The redevelopment of Dradeb has been postponed. They've got a different project now. They're going to use the money for a road."

"I see, though I'm not sure where they'll put it. There're buildings to the edges of the road we have now."

"No, Achar. You don't understand. Not a new road through here. A road to go around."

"Oh, yes, I see." He didn't, though-was too tired to concentrate on what the boy was trying to say.

Driss noticed his lack of attention and began to raise his voice. "A new access to the Mountain. The Governor doesn't like driving through here, and also there's the King. Not that he ever comes to Tangier-I don't think he's been here in three or four years-but in case he does come he'll have a more pleasant access to the hill. So the plan is to build a road up the Mountain from the other side. That way the people who live up there won't have to drive through here anymore."

"A blessing, I suppose."

"But don't you see?" Driss was angry. He stood and began to pace around the little room. His bitterness caught Achar by surprise. "There'll never be a rehabilitation. The whole project was a charade. They just wanted to cosmetize the place, put up some high rises to make the street look good. Fischer's idea, to make a new village here, never had a chance."

Achar watched him carefully. "Sit down, Driss," he said. "You don't have to shout in here. And stop talking like an idealist. It's foolish and boring too. If Fischer's plan had been approved, two-thirds of the money would have been stolen before they laid a brick. Fancy designs, big talk-that sort of thing always conceals a sham. The only way you ever change conditions is to get the people to change them for themselves. Fischer didn't understand that, but he was a foreigner. You were born here. You don't have that excuse."

"Yes. Yes." The boy seemed dejected. "I know all that, of course."

"Good! Then you can start doing something instead of talking about how bad things are. Get them to put up some lights. Stop the traffic every few minutes so people can cross. Get some damn water in here-dig up those rusted pipes, or whatever is wrong, and put in some new ones so we can drink. Look at this clinic. It's falling apart. It leaks when it rains, and in winter it's like ice. But we function here, Driss. We make it work."

After a silence Driss leaned forward, spoke angrily between his teeth. "Let me tell you, doctor, why there's no water here-the real reason. It's not the pipes. The golf course on the south flank of the Mountain has to be watered all day long, and since there's a shortage now, they're drawing on the reservoir that feeds Dradeb." He shook his head. "I don't want to build anymore," he whispered. "I want to tear things down."

Achar looked at him. He had to be careful now. But the young architect seemed sincere, with an anger he thought he could use. "All right," he said finally, "that's very nice. You want to tear things down. But not old buildings. Something else."

"Yes," said Driss. "You know exactly what I mean."

Achar lit another cigarette. "Why have you come to me?"

"People tell me you're a man who understands the future. That's why I came. But not just to talk."

"But you do talk about these things?"

"Sometimes-with people I can trust."

"It's dangerous to be a dissenter, Driss. There're a lot of people who make their living turning other people in." The young architect nodded.

Achar leaned back. "So," he said, "you want to see things changed."

"Yes."

"Well-we'll see. I'll mention your enthusiasm to some of my friends. Perhaps one of them will get in touch. Excuse me now. I need to rest. Then there're patients I have to see."

After Bennani left, Achar closed his eyes. Now, thirty-eight years old, he believed in ideas but no longer in men. When he'd been a medical student, at Cairo University, Gamal Abdel Nasser had been his god. He still kept the man's photo on his office wall, but he'd decided years before that Nasser had been weak and failed. All the talk about pan-Arabism, a great new era, a new place in the world for the backward peoples of Islam-all that had been rhetoric for the masses, without any result. Nasser had plunged into the anti-Zionist cause while his regime became corrupt and his power was misused. While he became a world figure, rushing to conferences here and there, to Washington and to Moscow for aid, he neglected the real issue, which was misery, the misery in which people lived. He became corrupted by his glory and lacked the courage to take away the privileges of his friends.

Now Morocco was miserable, it seemed to Achar, and the King, a clever man, was working ruthlessly to preserve his power. He'd nationalized the foreign banks, confiscated the foreign-owned plantations, but the only difference that had made was a few favored Moroccans had become rich. Achar didn't like foreigners much, but his dislike of them was nothing compared with his hatred for the Moroccan ruling class. Not just for the King (who symbolized everything that was wrong) but for the whole rotten system, the payoffs and favors, the entrenchment of powerful families, the shallow self-seeking of commercial people on the rise. The country was going under while they played games in Rabat-a modern Versailles, he thought, where the King distracts his rivals with golf tournaments, luxuries, and intrigues.

Now the system was starting to bend beneath the pressure. Achar, with other men, wanted to be sure that it finally cracked. He'd decided to devote his life to that-it seemed a logical extension of his work. What was the point of treating symptoms when the problem was the disease? He wasn't interested in a military coup. Monarchy or dictatorship-the repression would be the same. He wanted radical change, an austere socialist regime, first of all a program to break the psychological power of Islam. As long as Moroccans could shrug and say "It's God's will" before their miseries, it was hopeless to try to improve their lot. As a surgeon he'd shown people that the ills of the body could be attacked with a knife. Now he wanted to show them that the system that oppressed them must be attacked the same way.

Yes, he thought, Driss Bennani might be one to help. He could join the cadre that met in the clinic in the night, discussing ways to build a new Morocco, making plans to tear the old Morocco down.

Several hours later he was passing through the waiting room when a familiar face caught his eye. It was Kalinka Zvegintzov seated among veiled Moroccans on one of the hard benches that filled the room.

"Kalinka." He came up to her. "Are you waiting to see me?"

When she nodded he motioned for her to follow, leading her to an examination cubicle in the back.

"How are you?" he asked. "And how is Hamid? I haven't seen him in weeks."