Mohamed Choukri - For Bread Alone

He emptied his glass again and licked his lips contentedly. When did you come to Tangier?

Yesterday.

And where do you sleep?

In the street.

I was happy eating. I swallowed some mouthfuls without being able to chew them. He filled the glass and handed it to me. Do you drink?

Yes, I said, and drank it at one gulp.

I began to feel things getter clearer. I smoked the cigarette and had a second glass. When I had finished the third, he said: Do you want to sleep at my house?

I looked at him surprised. His expression was not reassuring. He wanted something of me, and I thought I knew what it was. Yes, his eyes tell me that’s what he wants.

No. Thank you. Thank you very much.

As you like. He shook a few drops of wine out of the glass and put it into his pocket. See you again, he said.

Thank you. Goodbye.

I had almost told him that I slept in the graveyard. Luckily I stopped in time to avoid such stupidity. I walked along the street where the palm trees grew. The soft breeze revived me, and I saw everything clearly in my mind. Then I stopped walking. From a car an old man was signalling to me. What does he want? I went over to the curb and leaned down to the window. He opened the door and said to me in Spanish: Get in.

I got in and sat beside him. He drove slowly. ¿Adónde vamos? I asked him. He made a circular motion with his hand. A paseo , he said. A little paseo .

He wants something different, I thought. But I’m not afraid of him. Just what is it he wants, though?

Are you from Tangier? he asked me.

No. I’m from Tetuan.

We were on the outskirts of town. He’s a maricón . That much is certain, I thought.

He stopped the car in a dark section of the road. The lights of the city sparkled in the distance. He turned on the overhead light. So the short ride ends here. With a caressing movement he runs his hand over my fly. And the other ride begins. Button by button, very slowly, he unfastened the trousers, and my sex felt the warmth of his breath. I did not dare look at his face or even at his hand, whose warm pressure had made my sex rise up.

¡Bravo! he was saying. ¡Macho bravo!

He began to lick it and touch it with his lips, and at the same time he tickled my crotch with his fingers. When he pulled half of it down his throat, I felt his teeth. And if he bites it? I thought. The idea cooled my enthusiasm. To bring it back, I began to imagine that I was deflowering Asiya in Tetuan. When I finished, he still had me in his mouth. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his lips. His face was congested, his eyes very wide, and his mouth stayed open. I buttoned my fly and folded my arms over my chest as if nothing had happened. Taking out a pack of cigarettes, he offered me one and lighted it for me. Then he lit a cigarette and turned on the radio. A beautiful calm music came over the air. I sat enjoying it, and was reminded of Oran and my work with the lovely Monique. Monique! Today it’s only a name, to be remembered or forgotten.

We did not say a word to one another as we drove back to the city. He gave me fifty pesetas and let me out near the place where he had called to me. He shook my hand and said: Hasta la vista . His hand was warm and smooth. I waved to him. Hasta la vista!

The air was full of smoke from the car.

They suck it for five minutes and they give you fifty pesetas. Do they all suck, the ones who are like that old man? Are all the maricones as nice as he was? Do all the ones who suck have cars, and do they all give fifty pesetas? A new profession, to add to begging and stealing. I must pick one of the three until a further choice appears. One of the three or all of them, depending on the circumstances. And why not? I took out the fifty-peseta note and looked carefully at it. Then I folded it and put it back into my pocket. I was afraid of losing it. If I had been that old man I should have vomited. Does he get the same pleasure from sucking me that I get from sucking a woman’s breast? Does he get excited while he does it? My sex still felt warm and sticky between my thighs. Suddenly I was struck by my conscience. What I had done was no different from what any whore does in the brothel. My upright sex was worth fifty pesetas, looked at in that light.

I went into a little restaurant in the Zoco de Fuera and asked for a plate of fried fish and half a loaf of bread. The two men facing me were masons. On the table stood a one-litre Mobiloil can. The three of us took turns drinking tepid water from it. Each time I lifted it I smelled the foul odour it gave off. At the other two tables there were working men, men out of work, and thieves of various kinds. They all ate in silence. There were only the sounds of spoons and dishes and kitchenware, and the voice of the proprietor giving commands to the boy who assisted him. From time to time one of those who has finished eating emits a loud belch, followed by a drawn-out exclamation: El hamdoul’ illah! I handed four pesetas to the proprietor and went out. It had been hot inside the restaurant. Egyptian and Moroccan music came from the cafés and restaurants. A young drunk, naked to the waist, stood outside the door of one café, cursing Allah in a piercing voice. Two other young men came out of the café, forced him to lean over, and then poured a jar of water over his head. Then they pushed him back into the café. I noticed that they too were staggering. I thought again of the boy who had saved me the night before from the police raid. I wonder if he is asleep in the graveyard now. If I don’t find him there shall I sleep there alone?

I went into a baqal and bought five Philip Morris cigarettes. I was approaching the entrance of the cemetery, and it occurred to me that a graveyard is the only place you can go into at any hour of the day or night, without having to ask permission. They’re right. Why should they have a guard here? There’s no money in here. The dead are not afraid. They don’t get angry or hit anyone. Each dead man is in his place. When his gravestone crumbles they put another dead one in the same spot.

The cardboard boxes were piled in their place in the corner. Have they caught him? What has happened to him? I spread out some boxes on the ground. Perhaps he will come. I lit a cigarette, took three wax matches and twisted them together to make a torch. Then I held them up to inspect the writing on the marble plaque. I saw from the numbers there that the person had lived for fifty-one years. The numbers were all I could read. He or she, I didn’t know which, was no longer living, and I was still here. But what does it mean, a man who was alive and now isn’t? What does it mean, that I should be sleeping here in this corner of a family grave? From the tiles and the well-kept plot I can see that the family was a rich one. What does it mean to allow a man sixty or seventy years old to suck on me and then give me fifty pesetas? There must be answers to these questions, but I don’t know them yet. The questions come easily, but I am not sure of the answer to any one of them. I thought the meaning of life was in living it. I know the flavour of this cigarette because I’m smoking it, and it is the same with everything. I smoked with great gusto, and then I threw away the cigarette and went to sleep.

I awoke early. A new boy lay asleep in the place of the other one who had saved me. Quickly I felt to see if what remained of the fifty pesetas was still in my pocket. My fortune was there. The boy had been right when he said there was no safer place than the cemetery. I think the human race respects its members more when they are dead than when they are alive.

At Bab el Fahs I bought a pair of rubber-soled alpargatas for fifteen pesetas. My feet were dirty. I had breakfast in a café and smoked the first cigarette of the day happily. A new day to live through. What shall I do during this new day? Will I manage to pick somebody’s pocket the way Sebtaoui and Abdeslam do in Tetuan? Why not? I must try before what money I have left gives out.