Leaving Tangier

6. Miguel

WOUNDED, THROWN to the sidewalk, Azel was still conscious. The two men standing over him were about to finish him off. His stomach and ribs hurt, but deep down he was proud: he’d had the courage to attack a monster, perhaps the most powerful man in the city. Until now, no one had dared defy him and tell him to his face what everyone thought. Azel felt a kind of euphoria that gave him strength in spite of his injuries. Convinced that this night belonged to him, he knew at that moment that his life was going to change.

Just when Azel, trying to get up, was stomped back to the ground, Miguel López’s car pulled over. The two attackers fled. Miguel and his driver got out to carry Azel back to the car. Then they drove off to the Old Mountain, where Miguel had a handsome house with a view of the medina and a stretch of the sea.

He was quite an elegant man who dressed with exquisite taste. He loved flowers so much that he spent an hour every morning arranging the various bouquets in the house, expressing his mood and inclinations through that day’s choice of blossoms and colour combinations. He spent the summer in Tangier and the rest of the year in Barcelona or travelling around the world to organize the exhibitions at his art gallery. A generous man, he had a passion for Morocco because of the quality of life there, its infinite variety. It was only natural for him to come to the aid of a man who’d been knocked down, and he didn’t understand why the customers in the bar were just sitting there, letting those thugs do their dirty work.

Miguel was close to one of the king’s cousins, a man who had his entrée at the palace and had placed Miguel on the list of those whom protocol would welcome there without question. Miguel was thrilled to appear at the court of Hassan II two or three times a year and to be considered a friend of Morocco, an artist expected to speak well of the country and — most important — defend it against criticism.

Miguel was a worldly man at heart. He adored parties where he could rub shoulders with celebrities, which amused him and made him feel proud, in a way. He had known many sorrows, and had decided to put his trust in lighthearted merriment. Posh society affairs provided all the frivolity he needed to forget his mistakes, failures, and heartaches.

Why, then, did Miguel want to tear Azel from his own world to take him home to Spain? At first, he wanted to help Azel. Only after seeing him a few times did he realize that a fling or even a serious affair was possible. Whenever Miguel forced a man to become involved with him, he regretted it, but he found a kind of perverse pleasure in feeling lonely and sorry for himself. He loved the ‘awkwardness’ of Moroccan men, by which he meant their sexual ambiguity. He loved the olive sheen of their skin. And he loved their availability, which marked the inequality in which the relationship was formed, for the lover by night was thus the servant by day, casually dressed to do the daily shopping, wearing fine clothing in the evening to stimulate sexual desire. The old concierge in an apartment building where an American writer and his wife lived had said it best.

‘That type, they want everything, men and women from the common people, young ones, healthy, preferably from the countryside, who can’t read or write, serving them all day, then servicing them at night. A package deal, and between two pokes, tokes on a nicely packed pipe of kif to help the American write! Tell me your story, he says to them, I’ll make a novel out of it, you’ll even have your name on the cover: you won’t be able to read it but no matter, you’re a writer like me, except that you’re an illiterate writer, that’s exotic — what I mean is, unusual, my friend! That’s what he tells them, without ever mentioning money, because you don’t talk about that, not when you’re working for a writer, after all! They aren’t obliged to accept, but I know that poverty — our friend poverty — can lead us to some very sad places. People have to make do with life, that’s how it is, and me, I see everything, but I don’t say everything! We’re all hung up by our feet, it’s like at the butcher shop: you ever seen a sheep hanging from its neighbour’s hoof? No? Well, Moroccans who go with Christians, it’s the same thing!’

The next morning, Miguel knocked on the door of the room where Azel had been put to bed. He wanted to know his guest’s name, what he did, how he was, and why he’d been in that bar. When there was no reply, Miguel knocked again before quietly opening the door. Azel was sleeping on his back, half-covered by the blanket. Miguel was stunned by the candid expression on his face, and the beauty of his bruised body. Deciding to let him sleep, Miguel tiptoed out. He felt agitated, and poured himself more coffee, which he rarely did because of his heart condition. He went from one room to another, then out onto the terrace to try to compose himself. He had the strong impression that this young man was going to turn his life upside down — he was convinced of this in a kind of blazing and inexplicable intuition. Although he would have liked to talk to someone about what had happened, about his feelings, Miguel forced himself to calm down and wait until lunchtime.

The situation brought back memories he had long struggled to repress, of the time when he used to flee his parents’ house to haunt the bars of Barcelona, longing for a love affair that would relieve his melancholy and loneliness. His parents — a Catholic mother and a Communist father — could not imagine why their son was slumming around with depraved men. They made life hard for him, barely even spoke to him. One day he was beaten up when he tried to stop a fight between two drunks. He couldn’t possibly have gone home with his right eye all swollen, his parents would have questioned him too much and might even have asked the police to investigate the men he was meeting. As Miguel was getting to his feet, wiping away the blood trickling from his forehead, a hand had offered him a white handkerchief, and for a few seconds he’d seen nothing but that scrap of white fabric, delicately perfumed. Slender, with long fingers and dark freckles on the back, the hand belonged to a tall, middle-aged man wearing a grey felt hat and smoking a cigar. The man had walked away with a firm step, but noticing a slight affectedness in his movements, Miguel had followed him without a word. For Miguel, that was the beginning of a complicated and painful story of love and sex. He had left his parents’ house only to become a slave in debt to his rich and powerful rescuer.

Brushing this already ancient history away with his hand, Miguel told himself that the young man still sleeping in his room had nothing like that to fear. Around noon, Azel appeared, timid, embarrassed at finding himself there, apologizing for having slept too long.

‘Sit down, you must be hungry.’

‘No, I’d just like an aspirin and a large glass of water.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Azz El Arab, but my friends call me Azel, it’s simpler.’

‘What does your name mean?’

‘The pride, the glory of the Arabs! It means I’m the best, someone precious, beloved and good…’

‘Hard to live up to, no?’

‘My father supported Nasser and was a nationalist with a passionate interest in the Arab world. Unfortunately, the Arab world of today is a shambles. So am I, by the way. Speaking of which, I would like to thank you for what you did last night.’

‘Please, don’t bother. Here, eat something.’

Azel felt more at ease, and asked Miguel about his work, his travels, what he was doing in Tangier. Actually, he was trying to find out if his rescuer could help him obtain a visa for Spain, but he did not mention that, and at one point took advantage of his host’s brief absence to slip away.

Miguel was annoyed. He asked his driver if he knew the boy, but Khaled shook his head.

‘You will find him and bring him back, nicely, don’t use any force.’

‘Understood, monsieur.’

Khaled was hurt, but didn’t dare show it in front of his employer, who was pretending to have forgotten that the two of them had once had an intimate relationship. Miguel sometimes displayed a remarkable ability to forget. Obliged to swallow his disappointment and make the best of things, Khaled had gotten married, determined to put an end to that episode and all the gossip and mockery of his friends at the café.

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.’

Just as Azel was getting ready to go, undercover cops poured into the bar.

‘Identity cards, get out your ID cards, and fast!’

Azel didn’t have his on him. He felt guilty immediately.

‘Those who don’t have one, get in the van, come on, speed it up, we’ve got a full night’s work ahead, Rabat’s orders.’

Azel obeyed and waited in the police van with a few other unlucky souls: two street bums, a whore, and five young men, a couple of them with bloody noses. Azel remembered that Abdelmalek had given him a bit of kif, but right then one of the cops came over and screamed at him, ‘Don’t move, you sonofabitch!’

The cop frisked him and found the kif — not much, but enough to justify his arrest and a lengthy interrogation that allowed the police to expand their investigation, moving from the hunt for drug traffickers to anti-establishment kids with diplomas but no work. Everything was getting mixed in together. It was a long, cruel, painful night. Azel was worn out from telling his life story and insisting that he wasn’t a dealer in anything, that he had no connection to Al Afia, that he’d even gotten beaten up because he’d insulted him. Nothing doing: the police had orders to find drug dealers, and Azel was the ideal patsy. The interrogation resumed the next day, this time with other cops as well, sent specially from Rabat. The atmosphere had changed.

‘Whom do you work for? Who hired you? Who’s your boss?’

Azel did not reply. He was slapped so hard his head rang, then strong hands shoved him back onto his chair and punched him in the stomach.

‘I’m going to make it easy for you, you bastard,’ said the cop. ‘Your boss is Al Afia, Hallouf, or Dib? Who’s the guy you get the drugs for, the stuff that goes out at night to Europe? Confess! Which of the three is your boss?’

Again, blows, increasingly savage ones.

‘You’d better get this, you smarty-pants graduate: our-beloved-king-may-God-keep-him-and-grant-him-long-life has decided to disint … disaff … anyway, to clean all the sons of bitches who bring shame on our fatherland out of northern Morocco. His Majesty is fed up with seeing our nation’s good name slandered in the international press because some fat pigs are filling their pockets selling drugs. It’s over, all that careless laissez-faire. So you’re going to assist the police and His Majesty our-beloved-king-may-God-keep-him-and-grant-him-long-life by telling everything you know about that scum, where they’re hiding and which one you work for!’

The cops were imitating actors in American movies. They were chewing gum while they slugged him, thinking that was macho.

Bent double with pain, Azel had a sudden idea.

‘I work for Monsieur Miguel.’

‘That’s not a Moroccan name!’

‘No, he’s from Spain, his name is Miguel Romero López.’

‘What we want is any Moroccans involved in the drug trade, not the others. What’s he do, your Miguel?’

‘He doesn’t have anything to do with drugs. He’s an art dealer, he has a gallery in Spain. He lives on the Old Mountain and I work there as an assistant, a secretary.’

A few more punches to the ribs knocked Azel from the chair. One of the cops made a phone call using some kind of coded language, and when Azel heard Miguel’s name a few times, he understood that the police were checking up on him. Then the two cops from Rabat tackled him again, cursing him, furious because they’d just found out that Azel wasn’t a trafficker after all, so they still had to find at least one before dawn. Leaving Azel lying on the floor, they went out to smoke a cigarette. That’s when the two local guys decided to take action.

‘You’re some cutie, hey, tell us, zamel, does he fuck you or is it you fucks him? I’ve always wanted to know who’s the top and who’s the bottom in those pervert couples. Anyway, we don’t hand over our asses, we do the screwing and you’ll find out what we do with guys like you!’

They locked the door and took turns hitting Azel. After that one of them held him down on the ground while the other pulled off his trousers. Then he tore off Azel’s underpants, spread his legs, spat between his buttocks, and tried to penetrate him. To make it easier for him, the other policeman knocked Azel out. They spat on him some more, then shoved a kind of broomstick up his anus, which was so painful it brought him around. The men kept hitting him, spitting on him, and taking turns entering him.

‘Take this, zamel, pansy, little scumbag, you’ve got a cute ass — an intellectual’s ass is like a big open book, but us, we don’t read, we ride, hey, here’s some more, bitch, slut, yes, this is what you do with the Christian, he gets on his belly and you stuff him, well, we’re stuffing you and you’re going to love it, you’ll beg for more until your butt becomes a sieve, a real train station, here’s more, goddamn intellectual, you’re crying, crying just like a girl, tell me, tell us that you’re sobbing with pleasure, ah, dinemok, fucking whore, you’ve got a girl’s ass, not even any hair, you’re just made for pulling a train…’

The floor was splattered with blood, vomit, and urine. Half fainting, Azel could not stand up. Opening his eyes a few hours later, he vaguely recognized Miguel, who had come to get him. The cops explained that they’d saved Azel just when some crooks were about to rape him in a hotel room on the rue Murillo.

‘It was a fight over some kif; we intervened because the hotel concierge called us. Luckily, we got there in time. We found him on the floor, trousers down… Have to watch out who you hang with, in this city!’

Azel’s face was grossly swollen and he walked with difficulty, supported by Miguel’s driver.

‘I can guess what happened,’ said Miguel when they’d gotten back to his house. ‘I’ll call a doctor.’

‘No, definitely not, I’m ashamed, ashamed!’

‘Listen: we absolutely must get a medical certificate and prosecute them. I have a few excellent contacts in Rabat. What they did was intolerable — the king did not give them carte blanche!’

‘But a policeman’s word is worth more than mine! The king doesn’t give a damn — what he wants is for nothing to change, he doesn’t bother with the details.’

‘All this is bad for Morocco’s image! If the press finds out, there’ll be hell to pay!’

‘The press? If the papers ever tell the truth one day, they’ll be shut down.’

Azel remained at Miguel’s house for several days to recuperate. He phoned his mother to reassure her, explaining that he was in Casablanca looking into a job offer. When Kenza came to see him, he told his sister the truth and begged her not to tell anyone. Feeling as humiliated as Azel did, she promised she’d do everything she could to help him get out of Tangier and the country.

The disinfection campaign was grinding up its victims. Some drug traffickers were arrested; others managed to get away. Bank employees involved in money laundering were sent to prison along with customs officers who’d closed their eyes to what was going on. In the collateral damage, a few innocents were convicted of threatening the security of the state. The minister of the interior took advantage of the situation to arrest a few of those troublesome jobless intellectuals on various charges and send them to prison. The press played along, reporting on the progress of the campaign. Trials flew by at top speed as the whole country held its breath. Businessmen predicted a grave economic crisis, explaining privately that the nation functioned in part thanks to all that dirty money, and that now the traffickers would stash their wealth in foreign banks, and no one would be safe. A politician argued that the indictment of innocent people was useful because it spread doubt and fear, thereby dealing an indirect blow to the opposition. Questioned by deputies after his speech, the minister of the interior justified his action.

‘The country is ravaged by the plague of corruption and the drug trade, so what could be more reasonable than hunting down those gangsters? We’ve been ordered to disinfect the country, and that’s what we’re doing, it’s only natural. Justice is on the job, of course; some judges have had the courage to attack those who thought they were above the law because they personally knew this or that figure in government. Nothing doing: there will be no compromises. If heads must fall, they will fall, and I cannot imagine that anyone among these honourable representatives of the people will protest. Our judiciary is independent, our police force is sound, and we should rejoice in this advance along the path of progress laid out by His Majesty our-beloved-king-may-God-keep-him-and-grant-him-long-life.’

An elderly deputy, much respected, rose to address the minister.

‘We agree, monsieur le ministre, that disinfection is necessary. But why not start with those close to you, with your own family? Everyone knows that your son has made some particularly sweet business deals thanks to the doors you opened for him. You must set a good example if you wish to be credible. As it happens, monsieur le ministre, you lecture everyone yet act as if you were above reproach. Since His Majesty has decided to clean up this country, let the cleansing be thorough: tidy up your own corner and do not take advantage of these times to imprison those who oppose your politics of repression.’

‘You are the senior member of this venerable assembly, and I will refrain from answering your unfounded accusations.’

The president of the assembly decided to bring this incident to a close by calling a one-hour recess.

It took Azel two weeks to get back on his feet. His nights were restless; he was taking sleeping pills, but his dreams churned with scenes of violence. And although Miguel urged him repeatedly to file a complaint against the two policemen, he refused to do so.