Leaving Tangier

7. Lalla Zohra

AZEL’S MOTHER, Lalla Zohra, was worried. Ever since her son had started coming home late at night, she’d been waiting up for him. She would park herself in front of the television in the living room and stay awake until he returned. Although her daughter Kenza kept telling her that was ridiculous, Lalla Zohra did just as she pleased and refused above all to believe that her son was slumming in the city’s bars and cafés. Like all mothers, she suspected something; she sensed that Kenza was hiding the truth, and feared that Azel might try again to burn up the straits.

‘I know my son, he cannot stay in one place, he cannot accept being supported in this life by any woman, even his sister. He has his pride, and I know he’s busy doing everything to go over there, to Spain. May God protect him, may God grant him the power to withstand the demon, to outwit the sons of sin! But why does he not call, why this silence? Perhaps he is ill? In hospital? Let it not be that… Our hospitals are in such a state that we must pray that no good Muslim will ever be forced to set foot inside.’

She was a woman from Chaouen, a little village where traditions were still respected, where modern life had not turned everything topsy-turvy. She could neither read nor write, but watched the news every night on television. She had learned numbers so she could use the phone.

Azel vaguely remembered his father, who had died in a traffic accident when Azel was young. He’d worked in a cement factory, and the insurance had brought a bit of money to the family, which for a time received some state assistance every year in the form of a few sugar loaves, cans of oil, and one bag of flour. The sugar came in a blue wrapper Azel had loved so much he’d used it to wallpaper his room. His mother had found a job. Like many women of her region and generation, she’d been involved in smuggling: she’d been a bragdia the way others were seamstresses. The people in the south said contrabondo; those in the north, bragued. She would take a night bus to Ceuta, wait for the border to open at five in the morning, and dash with hundreds of other women into the covered wholesale market. There she bought things she could easily resell: Dutch cheese, Spanish jam, pasta, American rice, shampoo, toothbrushes — in short, whatever she could hide under her clothing. This slender woman fattened herself up in minutes and crossed back over the border with a basket of goodies for her children. At least that’s what she told the customs officer to whom she slipped fifty dirhams for his silence. She earned the difference in the exchange between the peseta and the dirham: in other words, almost nothing.

To enter Ceuta, a Moroccan city occupied by the Spanish for five hundred years, the locals needed neither passport nor visa, only their identity cards. Lalla Zohra had had hers laminated to protect it, and she kept it with her at all times. ‘With this, we can eat!’ she liked to tell her daughter.

At first she’d enjoyed smuggling, hurrying through the market to get back before everyone else, sell faster, and go home. She was young, the mother of two children whom she left in the care of a neighbour, an honest woman who’d never managed to have children of her own. With time and fatigue, the market work had taken its toll: Lalla Zohra had gradually lost her enthusiasm, going less and less often to Ceuta, sometimes content now to resell what others had purchased.

Lalla Zohra had dreams for Azel, envisioning him as a doctor or an important official, and she hoped to marry him off to a girl from a good family. As for Kenza, who’d had less education than her brother, she was working and waiting for better days. Kenza’s favourite pastime was dancing, especially to Middle Eastern singing, which she loved. She was truly talented, and was asked to perform at every family party. She would let herself go, playing up her charm and shapely figure. Sometimes she agreed to dance for neighbours, who would give her a token payment afterwards. Her mother would accompany her there, keeping an eye on her. Kenza could have become a professional, but in that society, a girl who dances for a living is inevitably considered a person of easy virtue. That’s how it is. Lalla Zohra pretended to be worried about her daughter, who had not found herself a husband, but she was obsessively concerned about the future of her son, whom she spoiled shamelessly. Azel was feeling more and more stifled by her possessive love.

When she saw him come home so pale and thin after his stay with Miguel, Lalla Zohra began wailing.

‘Who did that to you? What happened? Why did no one tell me anything? Oh, my God, I knew it, I had a bad dream and refused to believe that dreams could be true — I’d lost a tooth, they were sticking it back in with a bitter paste, and so that’s what it was: my son almost died! You didn’t burn up the sea? You didn’t cross the straits, did you? Speak to me, tell me what happened…’

Khaled had entered the house after Azel, bearing huge baskets of provisions sent by Miguel, all the fruits and vegetables of the season plus half a sheep and several large sea bream. Khaled now withdrew and his master appeared, dressed in a handsomely tailored white gandoura* and matching babouches. Miguel presented Lalla Zohra with a magnificent bouquet of flowers.

Thinking for a moment that her visitor had come to ask for Kenza in marriage, Lalla Zohra called her daughter, who arrived, blushing and lovely, to shake Miguel’s outstretched hand and express her gratitude.

‘Azel has told me about you. Thank you for all you have done for him!’

‘But it was only natural. Tell your mother that I’m delighted to meet her. Azel is a friend, and I would like to help him.’

Lalla Zohra was perplexed. Who was this man, as elegant as a woman, and perfumed like one? And so good-looking, too! What did he want?

Azel asked his mother to prepare a good lunch for them, but Lalla Zohra begged off, explaining that there was not time enough to do the meal justice and insisting that Miguel come eat with them the next day.

A light scent lingered in the family’s little house after Miguel was gone. Lalla Zohra had understood, yet struggled to convince herself that he had come there for Kenza.

‘Don’t you think, daughter, that he’s a touch old for you?’

‘Yes, but what does it matter — he’s a kind and sophisticated gentleman. There are not many Muslim men as generous and refined as that Christian.’

‘What you’re saying is stupid,’ said Azel bluntly. ‘It’s not a question of being Muslim or Christian. Anyway, we’re experts at disparaging others and criticizing our own community. The Arabs have agreed never to agree about anything, everyone knows that, so we must throw out all those clichés.’

‘I only meant that I like the man,’ protested Kenza, ‘but as you know, I’m not the one who interests him!’

Pretending not to have heard that last remark, Lalla Zohra asked Kenza to go buy a white tablecloth at Fondok Chajra, the bazaar where she sold all her smuggled merchandise.

‘Tomorrow, my children, this luncheon must be perfect. And now, Azz El Arab, you will tell me everything.’

Laughing, Azel gave his mother a hug. She had tears in her eyes, and so did he.

The next day, Lalla Zohra’s modest home was filled with joy. She had repainted the entrance with blue-tinted whitewash and now awaited impatiently the arrival of the man she considered a stroke of good fortune. Although she said nothing, she so hoped that Azel would find work anywhere at all, with anyone! To her, Miguel was at least an ambassador or a consul — someone influential somewhere, in any case.

Lalla Zohra did not leave the kitchen during the entire meal. She ate nothing, and waited until teatime to make a brief appearance. Miguel was happy, brimming with constant praise for the delicacy of her cooking. He kept calling her Hajja; each time she corrected him, saying, ‘No, no, not yet: next year, Insha’Allah!’

Miguel invited Azel and his sister to the party he was giving to mark his coming departure, and asked Azel to arrive a little early to help out. Everything had to be impeccable. No false notes.

‘Elegance and flamboyance,’ said Miguel. ‘Flowers, ah, flowers: the whole house must have flowers! Table service entirely of silver, of course! The champagne, chilled, but not too much, just enough. The servants must be on their very best behaviour. Jaouad and Khaled, you must be clean-shaven. Above all, do not wear perfume, and do not serve almonds or tidbits that satisfy hunger. The aperitif should stimulate the appetite, not cut it!’

Everyone who was anyone in Tangier was there, the luminaries of the city as well as Miguel’s closest friends. The dinner had been prepared with extraordinary attention to detail; everything had to be in the most exquisite taste, and Miguel would not have allowed the slightest imperfection. By nightfall, the villa was thronged with a beau monde that seemed to have stepped from another era. An elderly princess from a distant land might rub shoulders with a former government minister or a few film stars long faded from memory. People discreetly pointed out an old lady dressed all in blue, said to have been for many years the king’s mistress, but that was a secret, of course. It was even said that she’d had a child by him, but that was only a rumour, naturally. She was a lovely lady who had made a few movies for a while, until the king, apparently, had asked her to stop: a wise decision, moreover, because her acting … Wearing one of Miguel’s fine white gandouras, Azel was welcoming guests and showing them around, and he looked like an Oriental prince or a character in the black-and-white films of the fifties. Suave and reserved, he circulated among the crowd as if he lived there. Noticing his good manners, Miguel was pleased to have lured him into his circle, and yet he was uneasy, feeling a pang in his heart he could not explain. Watching this handsome young man, he suddenly felt like crying, but let nothing show and busied himself taking the most attentive care of his guests. That evening, his life was taking a new turn: Miguel was not so much celebrating his departure as he was presenting his new friend. His guests whispered, laughing as they watched the servant in the white gandoura: Not bad, that young man, even rather classy! Miguel has lucked out for once! Think it will last? Who knows? But you don’t know what you’re talking about — the fellow’s just a servant, not Miguel’s new lover, don’t be silly! Listen, me, I’d try him out. Maybe he likes women, too… Hush, quiet, here comes Miguel!

Cocktails were served on the terrace, which overlooked the straits. Miguel had indeed put flowers all through the house. Wearing a pistachio green caftan of his own creation and a superb coral necklace, Miguel was resplendent. He talked about his recent trip to India and his desire to return there as soon as possible, even hinting that he hoped to take Azel along with him. Since things were now clear to his friends, they wanted to know who this new boy was, to approach him, chat with him, find out what he was like. Azel, however, hid in the kitchen. As for Kenza, she was bored. She had come because it would have been difficult for her to refuse Miguel’s invitation. But just what did he intend to do with her brother? She hadn’t been fooled, and abruptly she, too, felt like crying, but she forced herself to smile. In this worldly company whose existence she had never suspected, the men were inaccessible. ‘One day, yes,’ she told herself — ‘one day I’ll meet the man of my dreams. He’ll be tall, and kind, and good, and sexy, and it won’t matter whether he’s a Muslim or a Christian. In this country, though, it’s all so difficult. If I don’t go along with what’s expected, I’ll end up an old maid and be looked down on as a hboura, worn out and useless.’

Miguel came over to Kenza, took her arm, and introduced her to Ismaël, the only straight single man at the party. She noticed that he had clammy hands. That was a sign: this man was not for her. She went through some polite conversation anyway: Tangier-the-east-wind-the-houses-on-the-Old-Mountain-the-Europeans-who-snap-them-up-the-rise-of-Islamism-Spain-seen-from-afar-in-clear-weather …

She was irritated with herself for babbling so tritely to a man with sweaty palms and empty eyes to boot. Kenza changed her approach, becoming provocative.

‘Tell me frankly, Ismaël: what are you doing here tonight?’

‘I’m a guest, like you!’

‘Yes, but what do you have to do with this crowd? I mean, are you here to blend in, to join their tribe?’

‘I’m here because I like to treat myself occasionally to a nice piece of Christian ass! So there!’

Kenza was pleased to have ticked him off, and with a smile, she disappeared. On the way home, she kept seeing all those faces from a Tangier frozen forever in the 1950s.

Before his flight out, Miguel obtained a visa application form from the Spanish consulate and gave it to Azel.

‘Fill it out, I’ll send you the papers you need. In theory, if all the documents are in order, you’ll get your visa. I’ll arrange to send the consulate an employment contract for you. Be careful, and don’t talk about this to anyone — I’m superstitious!’

Azel knew the visa application routine by heart, having already gone through it at least three times, but he had the feeling that this time he would get lucky.

He tackled the job as if he were back in grade school, writing slowly and keeping the form clean by resting his hand on a blotter he’d found in an old notebook. The questions were simple but specific. His father’s family name, his date of birth. He wrote ‘Deceased,’ and in that case had to provide a death certificate. Then they asked him for his mother’s family name. He’d forgotten it. He asked Kenza, who couldn’t remember it either.

‘But why ever do they need my family name?’ asked Lalla Zohra in astonishment. ‘You’re the one emigrating, not me, at least for the moment…’

‘Bureaucratic red tape. You have to answer all these questions even if they’re idiotic. So, what’s your full name?’

‘Lalla Zohra Touzani.’

Date of birth: 1936, supposedly. Azel remembered his grandfather, who had often told him the story of the Spanish Civil War. He had been one of the Riffian soldiers forcibly conscripted by Franco.

Ocupación actual: Azel did not know what to put down. Out of work? Student? Tourist? Zero … Nombre, dirección y número de teléfono de la empresa para la que trabaja. But he wasn’t working… Finalidad del viaje: to visit a Spanish friend. Fecha de llegada and Fecha de salida: he really didn’t know anything about his dates of departure and return.

When everything was ready except the papers Miguel was to send him from Spain, Azel put the application in a manila folder and wrapped that in one of his mother’s scarves.

‘Here, Ma, this is my fate, it’s in your hands. Take this bundle and say one of those prayers of yours over it.’

‘You want me to bless it?’

‘No, Ma, I want you to wish me good luck, but do it with your words, your prayers that go straight to heaven. Without your blessings, I’m lost, I’m nothing, you know that. Your prayers have to be strong: some prayers don’t even get past the ceiling!’

‘Yes, my son, my little boy, light of my life.’