Tahar Ben Jelloun - Leaving Tangier

Anyway, it wasn’t the first time Miguel had asked him to bring him home some tipsy kid he was planning on helping, and Khaled didn’t even feel like warning Azel, whom he knew by sight from having seen him a few times hanging around bars with other guys like him.

Fetched by Khaled, Azel showed up again at the villa the next day, accompanied by his friend Siham. Without comment, Miguel received them with attentive courtesy. Azel introduced Siham as his fiancée, and she played along. Azel quickly turned the conversation to the topic that obsessed him: leaving. Being reborn elsewhere. Leaving by any means possible. Spreading your wings. Running along the sand shouting out your freedom. Working, creating, producing, imagining, doing something with your life.

Azel had no need to convince Miguel, who listened while he thought things over and wondered about all the questions tumbling pell-mell through his mind: Did he want to help Azel or keep him for himself? How could he do both? Miguel had lost much of his youthful vigor, but one thing was certain: he would make that man his lover. Although his seductive powers had waned, Miguel hoped to create a bond of friendship in place of love. Cheered by the prospect of a sexual liaison with Azel, Miguel watched him talk, move, walk, even show off his fiancée, and was delighted. It was Siham who had the courage to ask the question.

‘Could you help us get a visa?’

Irritated by the bluntness of her request, Azel apologized to Miguel, adding, ‘You know, more and more young people today dream only of leaving, just leaving this country behind.’

‘I do know, and it’s distressing,’ replied Miguel. ‘You’re not the first to ask me for help. When a country gets to the point that the ‘best’ of its children want to leave, it’s a terrible thing. I’m not passing judgement on all this, but I admit that while I do understand you, my hands are tied. I had the same dream when I was your age, although my circumstances were different. Spain was unlivable. Franco just wouldn’t die, and his religious and military regime infested everything. Well, I had the amazing luck to win a prize at the École des Beaux-Arts, and I left Barcelona for New York. That saved me. I felt as if I were passing from darkness into energy and light. I’d been stifling in that cramped, hypocritical existence, where everything smelled stale, as if dust were clinging invisibly to objects, clothes, hair, and especially the soul. All Spain smelled mouldy. People were choking. The country came alive only for soccer and the corrida.’

Without answering, Azel stood up and walked nervously around the living room.

‘Come on,’ he told Siham. ‘We’ve taken up enough of this gentleman’s time.’

‘Call me Miguel.’

‘Yes, Miguel. Well, see you soon!’

That evening Azel joined his pals from the neighbourhood at the Café Hafa, where they were playing cards. The lights of Tarifa were twinkling; unable to bear the sight of them, Azel asked Abdelmalek to change places with him, and sat with his back to the sea.

‘Don’t want to gaze at the forbidden land anymore?’ asked Abdelmalek.

‘What’s the point of staring at that horizon? So near and yet so far …’

‘Remember Toutia?’

‘Why?’

‘Simply because she haunted us and we were putty in her hands.’

‘No, we were so kiffed-up that we invented visions. Toutia never existed!’

‘Someone saw you at the Spaniard’s house. Watch out — he adores Moroccan boys,’ said Saïd.

‘It’s incredible, everyone knows everything in this city! I feel like emigrating just because of that.’

‘You think you’ll have a nice quiet life over there?’ asked Ahmed.

‘At least I won’t have to see your lazy faces anymore!’

‘If you manage to bamboozle the Spaniard,’ asked Abdelmalek, ‘you’ll help us?’

‘I have no intention of bamboozling anyone.’

‘Come on, you sleep with him — and you’re all set!’

‘I can’t stand being touched by a man.’

‘You’ll see when you get to it, you’ll be thinking only of your visa.’

‘So you, you could go to bed with a man, caress him, kiss him as if he were a woman, get hard and come and everything?’

‘Men, they’re not my thing, but when you got to, you got to: close your eyes and think of your girlfriend, it’s a question of imagination, and then remember what it’s going to get for you, it’s just being practical.’

‘But that’s prostitution!’

‘Call it whatever you want, I know a lot of guys who do that in the summer, even some who end up leaving in the zamel ’s baggage. Once abroad, they run off with a woman, get married, and become citizens, you know, that pretty burgundy passport. Afterwards they come back here all arrogant and triumphant. There’re others who flutter around old ladies, Europeans or Americans, wrinkled bags wearing too much make-up, alone, but so wealthy… I knew one guy, that was even his specialty, he’d stake out the Café de Paris to await his prey. You know he wound up marrying a Canadian who gave him her nationality, with all her inheritance as a bonus? When he got back to Tangier he was so rich he was unrecognizable. He’d dyed his hair, he wore designer clothes and talked to us in a kind of beginner English. He thought he was impressing us. Well, we felt sorry for him. One day a truck totalled his cute little brand-new Mercedes.’

‘And?’

‘He died!’

‘You mean God called him to His bosom because he went wrong?’

‘Don’t mix God up in this. He died because in this country the roads kill day and night, that’s all.’

Azel put down his cards, lit a pipe of kif, and after taking a few drags, handed it to Abdelmalek. His friend hadn’t really told him anything he didn’t already know. It was late, and Azel didn’t want to go home yet. He stopped by the Whisky à Gogo. Neither Al Afia nor his henchmen were there. A few cops were sitting at the bar. One of the waiters, Rubio, leaned over to Azel.

‘Things are happening. Seems the minister of the interior has been ordered to clean up the country. They’ve arrested some guys. People say Al Afia is already in Spain or Gibraltar.’

Azel looked the other customers over one by one and had the feeling something serious was about to go down. There was an oppressive silence, an uneasiness. The place felt strange, completely different. The bar had to be under surveillance. Azel wanted to leave but found he couldn’t move. He was caught.

He called Rubio over.

‘What’s going on?’

‘I told you, it’s the disaffection: on the radio they were talking about a cleansing.’

‘You mean a “disinfection”?’

‘Yes, something like that. They arrest everyone first, they sort them out later. You know, it’s like in the story of the guy running down the street who tells all the other men to run, and when one of them wants to know why, the guy says because we’re in danger, there’s a nutcase with a huge pair of scissors cutting the balls off everyone with more than two, so the other man says but I’m fine, I’m normal, I’ve got just the two, and then the first guy says yes but he cuts first and counts later!’

‘Even when it’s serious, you’re telling jokes!’

‘You’ve got to laugh, at least once a day. Okay, let’s get serious again. Seems Hallouf is on the run, Hmara and Dib are locked up and along with them, a whole lot of kids who haven’t done anything, although you never know. I’m giving you friendly advice: get out of here, go home, and stay there for the time being, because something doesn’t smell right. It’s like that often here in Morocco: they leave you alone for years and one day decide to pounce, to make an example, so you’d better make sure that example isn’t you! You remember that business with the middle-class kids the king had arrested for using drugs? No, you were too young; he went after the children of the bourgeoisie simply to show that he could, that no one was safe, and at the same time to send a signal to the drug dealers.’