Laila Lalami: Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits

It will be all right now. He comforts himself with the familiar fantasy that sustained him back home, all those nights when he couldn’t fall asleep, worrying about how he would pay rent or feed his mother and brothers. He imagines the office where he’ll be working; he can see his fingers moving quickly and precisely over his keyboard; he can hear his phone ringing. He pictures himself going home to a modern, well-furnished apartment, his wife greeting him, the TV in the background.

A light shines on him. Rubio is fast. No wonder it cost so much to hire him. Murad sits up. The light is away from his eyes only a moment, but it is long enough to see the dog, a German shepherd, and the infinitely more menacing form holding the leash.

THE OFFICER FROM the Guardia Civil wears fatigues, and a black beret cocked over his shaved head. His name tag reads Martinez. He sits inside the van with Murad and the other illegals, the dog at his feet. Murad looks at himself: his wet shoes, his dirty pants stuck against his legs, the bluish skin under his nails. He keeps his teeth clenched to stop himself from shivering beneath the blanket the officer gave him. It’s only fourteen kilometers, he thinks. If they hadn’t been forced into the water, if he’d swum faster, if he’d gone west instead of east, he would have made it.

When he climbs down from the van, Murad notices a wooded area up the hill just a few meters away, and beyond it, a road. The guards are busy helping a woman who seems to have collapsed from the cold. Murad takes off, running as fast as he can. Behind him, he hears a whistle and the sound of boots, but he continues running, through the trees, his feet barely touching the crackled ground. When he gets closer to the road, he sees it is a four-lane highway, with cars whizzing by. It makes him pause. Martinez grabs him by the shirt.

THE CLOCK ON THE WALL at the Guardia Civil post shows six in the morning. Murad sits on a metal chair, handcuffed. There are men and women, all wrapped in blankets like him, huddled close together to stay warm. He doesn’t recognize many of them; most came on other boats. Scarface sits alone, smoking a cigarette, one leg resting on the other, one shoe missing. There is no sign of Aziz. He must have made it. Just to be sure, he asks the Guinean woman a few seats down from him. “I haven’t seen him,” she says.

Lucky Aziz. Murad curses his own luck. If he’d landed just a hundred meters west, away from the houses and the hotel, he might have been able to escape. His stomach growls. He swallows hard. How will he be able to show his face again in Tangier? He stands up and hobbles to the dusty window. He sees Faten outside, her head bare, in a line with some of the other boatmates, waiting for the doctors, who wear surgical masks on their faces, to examine them. A wave of relief washes over him, and he gesticulates as best as he can with his handcuffs, calling her name. She can’t hear him, but eventually she looks up, sees him, then looks away.

A woman in a dark business suit arrives, her high heels clicking on the tiled floor. “Soy sus abogada,” she says, standing before them. She tells them they are here illegally and that they must sign the paper that the Guardia Civil are going to give them. While everyone takes turns at signing, the woman leans against the counter to talk to one of the officers. She raises one of her legs behind her as she talks, like a little girl. The officer says something in a flirtatious tone, and she throws her head back and laughs.

Murad puts in a false name even though it won’t matter. He is taken to the holding station, the sand from the beach still stuck on his pants. On his way there, he sees a body bag on the ground. A sour taste invades his mouth. He swallows but can’t contain it. He doubles over and the officer lets go of him. Murad stumbles to the side of the building and vomits. It could have been him in that body bag; it could have been Faten. Maybe it was Aziz or Halima.

The guard takes him to a moldy cell already occupied by two other prisoners, one of whom is asleep on the mattress. Murad sits on the floor and looks up through the window at the patch of blue sky. Seagulls flutter from the side of the building and fly away in formation, and for a moment he envies them their freedom. But tomorrow the police will send him back to Tangier. His future there stands before him, unalterable, despite his efforts, despite the risk he took and the price he paid. He will have to return to the same old apartment, to live off his mother and sister, without any prospects or opportunity. He thinks of Aziz, probably already on a truck headed to Catalonia, and he wonders — if Aziz can make it, why not he? At least now he knows what to expect. It will be hard to convince his mother, but in the end he knows he will prevail on her to sell her gold bracelets. If she sells all seven of them, it will pay for another trip. And next time, he’ll make it.

LARBI AMRANI DIDN’T consider himself a superstitious man, but when the prayer beads that hung on his rearview mirror broke, he found himself worrying that this could be an omen. His mother had given him the sandalwood beads on his college graduation, shortly before her death, advising him to use them often. At first Larbi had carried the beads in his pocket, fingered them after every prayer, but as the years went by he’d reached for them with decreasing regularity, until one day they ended up as decoration in his car. Now they lay scattered, amber dots on the black floor mats. He picked up as many as he could find and put them in the cup holder, hoping to get them fixed later. He eased the Mercedes down the driveway and into the quiet, tree-lined street. Traffic was unusually light, even when he passed through the crenellated fortress walls at Bab Rouah.

In his office at the Moroccan Ministry of Education, he opened up the day’s Al-Alam and asked the chaouch to bring him a glass of mint tea. In a few minutes he would tackle another pile of dossiers, deciding where newly graduated teachers would perform their two years of civil service, but for now he took his time reading the paper and sipping his tea. The headlines announced a train workers’ strike and yet another hike in the prices of milk and flour, so he skipped to the sports page.

Before he could read the weekend football scores, his secretary buzzed him to announce that he had a visitor. Larbi put the paper away and stood up to welcome Si Tawfiq, an old friend he hadn’t seen in fifteen years. (Or was it fourteen?) They had lived next door to each other in a new apartment complex in downtown Rabat, but after moving out to the suburbs they had lost touch. Si Tawfiq entered the room cloaked in his white burnous, even on this warm September day. After salaams and other pleasantries had been exchanged, Tawfiq cleared his throat. “It’s about my niece. She’s finishing her degree next summer.” His protruding eyes, the result of a thyroid condition, made Larbi uncomfortable.

“Congratulations,” Larbi said.

“And she wants a job in Rabat.” Tawfiq smiled knowingly.

Larbi tried to conceal his annoyance. The greatest need for teachers was in smaller towns and in the forgotten villages of the Atlas Mountains.

“I was hoping you could help her,” Tawfiq added.

“I wish I could, Si Tawfiq,” Larbi began. “But we have so few jobs in the city these days. The waiting list is this thick.” He held his fingers wide apart, as if he were talking about the phone book.

“I understand,” Tawfiq said. “Of course, we would try to do anything we could to help you.”

Larbi stroked the ends of his thin mustache, twisting them upward. He was not above taking the occasional bribe, but he recalled the morning’s omen. “Please,” he said, holding up his palms. “There’s no need.” He cleared his throat and added weakly, “I’m happy to serve all teachers. It’s just that when so many people want the same thing, it becomes impossible to get all of them the assignment they want.”