Leaving Tangier

8. Dear Country

FOR THE FIRST TIME in his life, Azel was taking a plane — and leaving Morocco. His mother and sister had come with him to the airport, weeping bitterly and embarrassing an already keyed-up and excited Azel, but when he realized that they weren’t the only ones wailing, he felt less conspicuous. Lalla Zohra had packed a bag of food — honey cakes, crêpes, and black olives — that Azel was refusing to take with him in spite of his mother’s entreaties. He was ashamed. The police and customs officials were minding their manners. The plane hadn’t arrived yet, which made Azel even more nervous. He decided to reread the letter he’d written to his country the day he’d received his entry visa and residence permit for Spain. He went to the cafeteria, ordered a coffee, got out his notebook, and began to read. He was smiling, but wary of being interrupted. Now and then he stopped reading to sip his coffee and observe the other travellers. At one point, when a bee came buzzing around the table, he caught himself following it with his eyes. Then there was an announcement: the plane’s late arrival meant that passengers would be boarding one half-hour behind schedule. Azel felt the sudden urge to slip off, to go someplace completely different to read his letter aloud, a letter that many of his friends would have wanted to write:

Dear country (yes, it must be ‘Dear country,’ since the king says ‘My dear people’),

Today is a great day for me: I finally have the opportunity and good fortune to go away, to leave you, to breathe the air of a new country, to escape the harassment and humiliations of your police. I set out, my heart light, eyes fixed on the horizon, gazing into the future, unsure of what I will do — all I know is that I’m ready to change, ready to live free, to be useful, to attempt things that will transform me into a man standing on his own two feet, no longer afraid, no longer dependent on his sister for cigarette money, a man finished with odd jobs, who’ll never need to show his diploma to prove he’s useless, a man who won’t ever again have to deal with that corrupt drug-dealing bastard Al Afia, or be the flunky of that senile old fart El Haj, who feels up girls without bedding them. I’m off, my dear country, I’m crossing the border, heading for other places, armed with a work contract: I will finally earn my living. My land has not been kind to me, or to many of the young people of my generation. We’d believed that our studies would open doors for us, that Morocco would finally abandon its society of privilege and arbitrary misfortune, but the whole world let us down, so we’ve had to scramble to make do and do everything possible to get out. Some of us have knocked on the right door, ready to accept anything, while others have had to struggle…

But, my dear country,

I am not leaving you forever. You are simply lending me to the Spanish people, our neighbours, our friends. We know them well. For a long time they were as poor as we were, and then one day, Franco died: democracy arrived, followed by freedom and prosperity. I learned about all this sitting outside cafés: that’s where the rest of us Moroccans have chosen to study relentlessly the coasts of Spain and recite in chorus the history of that lovely country. We wound up hearing voices, convinced that by staring at those shores, we’d conjure up a mermaid or an angel who would have pity on us, come take us by the hand to help us across the straits. Madness was slowly stalking us. That’s how little Rachid ended up in the psychiatric hospital in Beni Makada. No one knew what afflicted him; he could only say one word, over and over: ‘Spania.’ He wouldn’t eat, hoping to become so light that he could fly away on the wings of the angel!

O my country, my thwarted will, my frustrated desire, my chief regret! You keep with you my mother, my sister, and a few friends; you are my sunshine and my sadness: I entrust them to you because I will return, and I wish to find them in good health, especially my little family. Free us, however, from those thugs who feed off your blood because they enjoy protection where they should meet with justice and prison; rid us of those brutes who know the law only to twist it. Nothing stops them. Money, as my mother says, sprinkles sugar on bitter things.

I’m not a very moral guy, not absolutely honest, and I’m far from being perfect, I’m just a breadcrumb at that feast where the guests are always the same ones, where the poor person will always be out of place and his poverty a crime, a sin. ‘Hey, the money’s there,’ I used to hear Al Afia say. ‘All you got to do is take it. Want to stop being poor? Just set your mind to it!’

And I was tempted to act like everyone else. But my mother’s hand, and the hand of my father, whom I hardly knew, set me back on the right path. I thank them for not having chosen the easy way.

I must stop here, however; I’m tired. I am imagining myself on the plane. I’m not frightened, I’m excited — curious, dear country, to see you from above, and I hope the pilot will have the bright idea to fly over Tangier just for me so that I can say au revoir, so that I can guess who’s in that distant shack, who’s suffering within those crumbling walls, who lives in that slum, and how long they’ll be able to keep bearing this wretched poverty.

A short, well-dressed old man was waiting for Azel in the airport in Spain with a sign bearing his name in block letters, and he spoke right up.

‘I’m called Chico, it’s a nickname, I work for Señor Miguel. I’m short but I don’t give a damn about that.’

Azel wasn’t sure what to say, so he collected his suitcase and followed him. Chico didn’t open his mouth during the entire ride. Carmen, Miguel’s elderly housekeeper, showed Azel to the living room and asked him to please wait for Miguel to return. Something was bothering her; it was written all over her face. She knew Miguel too well not to know what was coming, for she’d seen him fall in love many times, and it always ended badly. Miguel was too trusting and let others take such outrageous advantage of him that it even seemed he might be doing that on purpose, to punish himself through some obscure sense of guilt.

Dead on his feet, Azel was still dazzled by his new environment. He marvelled at the number of paintings on the wall. Waiting in the living room, he hardly dared light a cigarette. Everything was so neat. Not a speck of dust. Silver bibelots, a small army of rare and precious objects, gleamed in a display cabinet.

Carmen brought Azel some coffee. His mind was reeling. Exactly what was expected of him? His first thoughts were of his mother, and of Kenza, too. They would be proud of him some day. Perhaps he might even be able to send Kenza some money and bring her to Spain. Right now, though, he had to face the present. Miguel. And the difficult moments that would inevitably arrive, sooner or later… Miguel was not doing all this through pure altruism. And yet he was a sensitive, intelligent man: surely he must have divined how much Azel loved women…

Miguel hurried into the living room, as dapper as ever, but rather distant, quite soberly dressed, and wearing a black fedora.

‘Did you have a good trip?’ Without waiting for a reply, he added briskly, ‘We must see about your papers right away. We’ll go tomorrow to the police station with your passport to fill out a ton of paperwork. Then we’ll see my lawyer to draw up the final contract for your employment here. For the moment, you’ll stay in the maid’s room on the top floor. It’s very irritating, but we absolutely must go through all this strictly by the book.’

Azel hesitated a moment before asking him exactly what his job would be.

‘Oh come on, don’t play the idiot, you’ve understood perfectly well…’

‘No, Monsieur Miguel, I assure you…’

‘Enough of this pretence! Let’s deal with these documents now; we’ll see about the rest later.’

That evening Azel sat alone in his little room. He wanted to go out but was afraid of Miguel’s reaction. Tired and sad, he went to bed without managing to fall asleep. His head was in a whirl with images that were sometimes clear, sometimes shadowy and confused. Feeling lost, he opened the bag his mother had packed for him and stuffed himself like a kid on honey cakes, reflecting that the paradise he’d dreamed of couldn’t possibly resemble a little attic room in a big villa, or this loneliness that was keeping him awake. He thought of Siham. He remembered her tears, and her body entwined with his. He wanted her. But Siham was now far away. Closing his eyes, he touched himself. Then he opened his notebook and continued writing his letter to his country.

Dear country,

Here I am, far from you, and already I miss something of you; in my loneliness, I think of you, of those I’ve left behind, my mother most of all. What is she doing as I write this? She must certainly be cooking dinner. And Kenza? She’ll be home soon, unless this is the evening she works as a private nurse. My pals, I can just see them, they’re at the café. Rachid is back, saying nothing; the others are playing cards, envying me, thinking how lucky I am. I hear them; they’re speaking of me with resentment. That’s crazy — I’d like to be with them, simply for one hour, and then return here. Well, no: I don’t want to leave even for an hour. I want to stop thinking of you, of your air, your light. You know, from Morocco you can see Spain, but it doesn’t work like that in the opposite direction. The Spanish don’t see us, they don’t give a damn, they’ve no use for our country. I’m in my little room, it smells musty in here; there’s only one window and I don’t dare open it. I admit that I’m disappointed — it’s just that I’m impatient, exhausted, wiped out by the change of climate, and by fear, too, the fear of what’s new, of not being able to cope… I’ll try to fall asleep thinking of you, my dear country, dearest and greatest of my anxieties.