Leaving Tangier

25. Azel

THE SLAP KNOCKED AZEL down and left him stunned. He had never imagined that one day Miguel would hit him. It even took him a moment or two to realize what was happening. When he stood up, Carmen brought him his suitcase and pointed to the door. She had warned Miguel many times about the way his protégé sometimes behaved, but until now her employer had always smiled and gestured helplessly. That was back when he was still in love.

Azel understood that this time he could not talk his way out of trouble. He had gone too far, had broken his word, and was only getting what he deserved. So he headed for the door without protest, mumbling that he would return for his suitcase. Carmen held out her hand for his house keys. Azel hesitated for an instant before fumbling through his pockets; pulling out a set of keys, he placed them on the table in the front hall. There was suddenly something pathetic about the look in his eyes, but Carmen nodded and turned on her heel as though he were already gone. Miguel had retreated to his room; he was about to go to Madrid to prepare an important exhibition of works by a great hyperrealist painter, Claudio Bravo, the artist’s first show in his native Spain in fifteen years, but Miguel was waiting for Azel to be out of the house before he left on his trip. He did not like confrontations, and had left Carmen in charge of such proceedings several times before. Miguel justified his cowardice by convincing himself that a new argument with his lover wouldn’t change anything. Their last fight had almost turned nasty. When thwarted, Miguel became vulgar and mean; in such moments, his Barcelona street-tough side — which he detested and repressed — would abruptly reemerge. He was then capable of striking his antagonist with the first sharp object he could lay hands on. And Azel’s behaviour was exactly the sort to provoke him to such violence.

Azel had been growing increasingly lost, shutting himself up in an imaginary world, believing in fate and premonitory dreams, being guided by what he called ‘the fragrance of the perfume of death.’ He had become a true professional liar, an actor who knew how to turn the most hopeless situation to his advantage. He counted on his long eyelashes and his dark, laughing eyes. His mother had always told him that he was the handsomest boy in Tangier; he was finally taking her at her word, and acting accordingly.

Azel lit a cigarette. Setting out for Barcelona’s main drag, Las Ramblas, he knew that he was leaving the residential neighbourhood of Eixample forever. The sky was flooded with sublime light, but Azel’s heart was bruised, in the grip of an alien hand. He had tears in his eyes and his mouth was dry, with a bitter taste. He told himself it was because of the cigarette, and the lousy wine he’d drunk the night before. He walked along, head down. No desire to talk, to think. And yet he loved Passeig de Gracia, that wide avenue along which you could walk forever. This morning, however, nothing was as usual, and the people he passed looked like shadows, transparent bodies auguring some imminent misfortune. He felt as if he were running full tilt down a dangerous hill. Now and then he would stop for a moment and lean back against a tree. All of a sudden, the sounds of the city were coming to him amplified, clanging in his head with the force of a nightmare.

At the end of Las Ramblas begins the Barrio Gótico, the medieval labyrinth at the centre of old Barcelona; there Azel recognized a few faces, Moroccans, small-time dealers or young layabouts who spent their days wandering the streets in search of fresh schemes or adventures. Azel didn’t want to chat with them this morning; he even felt disconnected from their language, their ways, their world. He pitied them. He stepped up his pace to avoid any chance someone would approach him with something to sell or exchange for a bit of kif.

He drank some coffee without sugar, spat on the ground, and cursed the day he’d first set foot in this country. A feral cat dashed across the street. Azel envied its freedom.

Dirty, unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes, Azel rang Kenza’s doorbell. She’d been sleeping soundly, to rest up after her nights on duty, and refused to let him in, asking him to come back later. He began pounding on the door. Nâzim, who’d spent the night there, got up to put a stop to that racket. When he opened the door, he caught a punch on the chin.

‘What’s he doing here, this kike? Unless he’s one of those khorotos, those Third World guys who prey on respectable girls…’

Wearing hardly anything at all, Kenza asked Nâzim to move out of the way: this business did not concern him. Then she screamed out her anger at Azel.

‘He’s not a kike or a khoroto either! This man has a first name, a family name, a country, and a job — imagine that!’

‘Oh really? Then why didn’t you tell me anything about him? Where’s he come from?’

‘His name’s Nâzim, he’s Turkish.’

‘That’s just what I said, he’s a khoroto!’

‘Don’t use language like that with me. I forbid you! You’re such a disappointment, Azel, nothing works with you, you ruin everything.’

‘Fine, but I won’t put up with him touching you.’

‘Who do you think you are, to put up or not with anything? I don’t care what you think! Just look at yourself! You’re a complete mess!’

‘I don’t like Turks. I don’t like their language, I don’t like their loukoum candy, I don’t like the way they look at people.’

‘You’re a racist!’

‘So what? I have the right not to like Turks, or Greeks either… Men, those who touch you, anyway — I can’t bear it that you belong to them…’

‘Maybe you’d like to add Arabs, Jews, and Africans to the list?’

‘Arabs? I could never stand them. I’m an Arab who doesn’t like himself. There. At least things are clear. All right, fine, I’m out of here: you’re going bad, you’re turning into a whore, and you’re hurting our mother.’

‘That’s it, drag in our mother! I can think of one mother who’d be crushed if she could see what’s become of her beloved son.’

‘It’s all your fault! We could have stayed together, like the fingers of a single hand, but you, you worked up this scheme to leave the country and our family and now you’re going to the dogs! A Turk fucking my sister — how do you expect me to stand that!’

Azel slammed the door and ran off. He was crying. He stopped at a bar and downed shot after shot of whisky. Once he was drunk, he took a taxi back to Miguel’s house.

He vomited on the carpet in the front hall. Carmen put his suitcase out on the sidewalk and ordered him never to come back. The shock restored a sudden lucidity to Azel, who saw the situation with clarity and precision. He knew it was the end. He realized that this was the last time he would ever cross that threshold. Then he felt something like a great relief: he was free at last to go smoke kif, drink cheap wine, hang out in the streets, and see his pals again, with whom he shared the same sense of despair. It took him a long while to walk to the Barrio, where his friend Abbas was the local big shot.

‘I’m free, I’m finally free!’ he shouted as soon as he spotted him. ‘I don’t have to fuck some guy to make a decent living!’