The Arch and the Butterfly

1

Ahmad Majd told me about a real-estate scandal engulfing a luxury housing project in Tétouan built by the Sour al-Watani Group on land they had bought from a known drug dealer. After the project was inaugurated amid much fanfare, it was discovered that the land belonged to the state and had been sold using fake title deeds. This led to sweeping arrests in the ranks of the administration and courts ruled in favour of the state. The property developer had to pay for the land twice. That the elite inaugurated a project based on stolen land, as well as the involvement of numerous parties in underhand dealing, fraud and forgery, made the scandal blow up in public.

I said to Ahmad Majd that he must be happy with this turn of events, since the scandal involved his biggest competitor. He said quietly that he was not in competition with anyone, and added that his life and that of generations to follow him would not be enough to manage the success he had achieved. He said he had mentioned the issue because he was aware of the danger such corrupt deals posed to the future of democracy in Morocco. I could not help but bring up, laughing, the four hectares in the centre of Marrakech that he had bought from the state at a very low price, on the understanding that in return he would cover the cost of removing the inhabitants living on it. Once it was cleared, he sold the land at a price five times lower than the market value to a powerful group that did not dare acquire the land directly from the state. He did that in return for other sites in Marrakech and other cities at a token price. Was that not also a fraudulent deal? I asked him.

Nothing made him flinch. ‘In this arrangement,’ he responded, ‘is there a hint of forged contracts, legal skulduggery or hush money? Do you want to criminalise buying and selling for obscure political purposes, or stop human intelligence from breaking into the property market?’

I said, despondent, ‘I don’t want anything of the sort. I only want to save my skin!’ He laughed from his belly and said that I was the last person in this town who thought all that was done or not done aimed only at getting his skin.

I told him that I was not like that, but I understood that I could be that way, because this general mood of confidence disturbed me. The feeling that we had all made it to safety and that nothing threatened our negligence was a stupid feeling with nothing human about it.

Around this time Ahmad Majd was finishing what he said was the apartment building of his life. It was a huge structure close to the new main road, where buildings were not supposed to be higher than four floors to avoid blocking what was left of the view of the High Atlas mountains from inside the medina. But Ahmad Majd had fought a bitter war to go up nine floors. That battle forced him to buy, at market price, a nearby lot that allowed him to move his apartment building a few metres away from the first location, which would have blocked the view of the Atlas entirely.

Ahmad Majd used to say that the city was a city and the mountain a mountain, so why did anyone want to drink their coffee in the street as their sleepy eyes roamed over the High Atlas? ‘Plus, my brother,’ he would continue, ‘no one looks at the mountains when they’re walking or driving in the street. That’s just tourist nonsense summed up in that stupid photo of someone lying under a luxuriant palm tree, smelling the orange blossom and gazing at the snow on the Atlas. Bullshit! All that’s left to do is add a Tanjia pot to the scene to conjure up stewed kidney from under the ground.’

Despite all that was said about the apartment building, Ahmad Majd pushed ahead with the project. He said that what Marrakech needed was a building that would free it of the spirit of the distant past and bring a bit of frivolity into the city, to break the grip of the ubiquitous brick colour, the palm trees and the general appearance of a stop for desert caravans. He shaped his building in the form of a giant butterfly, with a nightclub below the ground floor and restaurants at ground level. A vast banquet hall and shops were located on the first five floors, while luxury apartments occupied the remaining floors. An amazing apartment would take up the whole of the ninth floor, where the residents would have the Koutoubia in the palm of their hands.

Foreign companies competed to be awarded the interior design on all the floors. Ahmad Majd did not specify any features for the interior except for materials and shapes. The external decor consisted of a soaring butterfly, and the inhabitants of Marrakech did not wait long to nickname the building the Butterfly, which became the official name used by city residents as a reference point for appointments and on maps.

People were struck by this building with its provocative shape, located in the heart of the medina, whose ancient character was protected by an army of conservatives, informants and the curious. But few of them knew that the apartments on the top four floors were the ones that had allowed the building to sprout without anyone seeing it. Whenever I asked Ahmad Majd in total innocence about the owners of those luxury apartments, he would mention a number of rich Gulf Arabs, and a world-renowned French perfume maker on the top floor. He did not mention the name of a single Moroccan. I would smile at that, and he would smile back and say, ‘The building will remain a mystery. There’s no point in insisting.’

On the ninth of May that year, Ahmad Majd organised the opening of the Butterfly. It was a celebration exactly as he had planned for many years and it surpassed everything people had imagined about celebrations, even the reopening of the Hotel La Mamounia in the 1980s. The echoes of those festivities had reached the landings of Kenitra central prison where Ahmad Majd had been incarcerated. He had never suspected then what would happen less than a quarter of a century later. Even those celebrations with all their splendour did not amount to one tenth of what Ahmad Majd designed for the inauguration of his new building.

At the opening of the Butterfly, hundreds of young men wearing the same traditional red costume and the same striped Marrakechi hat stood on both sides of the building. Thousands of butterflies, guided by invisible threads, and thousands of multicoloured birds, pigeons and doves invaded the Marrakech sky. Hundreds of guests were transported from their respective hotels to the Butterfly on the backs of white camels. A waterfall gushed from the top of the building to its marble courtyard. For years to come people would remember the philharmonic orchestra that came all the way from Berlin and the dozens of male and female singers who performed. Behind the stage where they were singing was the largest butterfly, revealing the colourful and brightly lit balconies of the building. People would especially remember that for the first time since Marrakech started having festivities, dancing and partying till late at night, hundreds of men and women roamed the city from one end to the other, carrying plates of dates and glasses of milk. Ahmad Majd had had the drink glasses made especially for the occasion. He’d engraved the name of the building and the date of the opening of its huge shopping mall on the glasses, along with a picture of baby Ghaliya with a sentence below it reading: ‘This is by the grace of God.’ The crowd partied to the early hours of the morning.

The official celebration ended about midnight. Ahmad Majd said after the opening party ended he would go up to the dream apartment on the ninth floor as a guest of the French owner, the perfumier, who had paid cash for the apartment without seeing it. I asked if it were possible for me to know the price of the apartment, but Ahmad Majd laughed, saying, ‘Can you just enjoy yourself and keep quiet?’

Fatima, Layla and I joined Ahmad. The apartment opened into a circular hall in the style of the Andalusian domes, and in the middle was a fountain of intertwining horses made of white marble, jets of water spouting from their mouths. A group of guests hovered around this piece of art, talking at length about the well-known British sculptor who had made it especially for the apartment. I had the impression I knew the sculptor, having seen him in a catalogue Fatima had brought me from an exhibit of major European sculptors a few years earlier in Strasbourg. Fatima confirmed my guess. She was open-mouthed in amazement: the sculpture cost more than all our apartments put together. Layla said she found the hall vulgar, and she was right. But her opinion in no way affected the mood of this second festivity, and I was surprised by Ahmad Majd’s anger, for he heard the comment as he was making room for himself among us. Nevertheless, I decided to stay in a good mood for the party and refrain from any cheap jibes. The most amazing thing in the apartment was the swimming pool. It stretched to the end of the balcony and gave the impression that the water was flowing in the street. Layla and I stood there for a long time admiring the illuminated swimming pool, which revealed a huge mosaic mural. We were looking at it in awe when our happy host approached us and explained that the mural was a Byzantine mosaic that had followed him for thirty years, from one house to another. He added, ‘I think it has finally settled down in this suspended paradise.’

Layla asked, ‘Where was it thirty years ago?’

‘I don’t know exactly. My business rep bought it at a British auction. So I imagine it was somewhere in the Middle East.’ Then he asked us if the reflection of the light on the mosaic bothered us from this angle, and Layla assured him there was no reflection at all. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to make sure. We placed a glass cover on the mural to protect it, and I feared it would reflect the rays.’

Layla said, ‘I’m just trying to imagine the void that the removal of this masterpiece left behind.’

Our host replied in a friendly tone, ‘It would be like any other void, my lady. A mere void.’

We spent a long time admiring the apartment, which felt like a museum. There were sculptures from the Far East, Persian miniatures, Turkish glassware, and a mix of textiles, leather and silver and copper vessels. There were also works by the major Orientalist painters, including Delacroix and Jacques Majorelle. Layla jokingly suggested stealing them. I told her there was certainly an electronic security system in place to protect the treasures, which had already been stolen once during their lifetime.

There was a large wooden gallery and huge plants in the massive bar that overlooked the Koutoubia. Fatima, Layla and I sat at a small table near the counter and away from the noise of the guests who had spread around the swimming pool and filled the apartment’s balconies. We were discussing our common preoccupations when I felt that someone was looking in my direction; or, to be more precise, I felt a presence that was overpowering me. I expected someone to appear suddenly. This terrified me and I was unable to move, as I thought about Al-Firsiwi, my mother and Zulikha. Layla wondered what was wrong with me. I asked her to check if there was someone behind me or on the other side of the counter watching me. She told me she couldn’t see anyone.

I looked to the right, where the refrigerators and the shelves of cups and glasses were, and I saw him standing there, looking over the city with his dreamy expression and the bunch of stony grapes over his shoulder. I saw his broken arm and his adolescent size. The statue had all the dullness of granite dating back to the first century BC. I stood up trembling and approached it. I examined its right foot and found it had lost four toes, the same ones that were still on the statue’s plinth at the entrance to Walili.

‘It’s Bacchus! The Bacchus of Walili,’ I yelled in excitement.

A number of guests gathered round. Ahmad Majd arrived, clearly upset. Layla held on to me as Fatima examined the statue and took photos. I was overcome with a feeling I could not define, a mixture of joy, madness and fear.

Ahmad Majd shouted at me, saying, ‘Bacchus, Bacchus! And so what?’

I said, ‘Nothing, but we must take it. That’s all there is to it.’

Our host approached our group and asked, a smile frozen on his face, what was the matter. Fatima explained that it was simply an unexpected encounter with a person we knew. The Frenchman said, ‘I always like to play a role in unexpected encounters.’

Fatima pointed to Bacchus, saying, ‘He has been our friend for about a quarter of a century. In other words, ever since he disappeared from his family home in Walili.’

The Frenchman did not make any immediate comment, but his face rippled with a mounting tremor. He said this adolescent Bacchus was not considered an exceptional artistic achievement, despite the lyricism deriving from the lack of harmony between the age of the young man and the delicacy of his movements, which almost stripped the statue of its unworked feel. ‘Despite all that,’ he said, ‘I loved it at first sight when I saw it in Frankfurt. I must confess that it did not cost me much. I can honestly say it is the cheapest piece in my collection.’

We left the apartment after an extended argument over what to do. I insisted on staying to wait for the police to arrive so I could make a statement regarding Bacchus’s recovery. But the French host, Ahmad Majd and other guests suggested otherwise, so as to avoid ruining such a beautiful evening, especially since the owner was not denying the fact or distancing himself from the matter. They all said they knew nothing about the origins of the Bacchus statue, and they wondered if it would be possible to wait until the morning for the guests to leave and the festivities to end. Then we could do whatever was needed, quietly.

Ahmad Majd asked me whether I was more interested in Bacchus or the scandal.

‘Both,’ I said, and to be honest, I added, ‘I’m interested in the scandal, first and foremost.’

Finally, dragging my feet, I left the gallery, went in the direction of the swimming pool and then to the circular hall, and finally to the lift. I was unable to fully recover from the in-between condition I had experienced. I had the feeling I had found Bacchus and not found him; I was happy at this and not happy; I was surprised and not surprised. I thought of calling Al-Firsiwi but I wondered what I would get from doing so. I would probably succeed in destroying his legend regarding Bacchus, and then what? Wouldn’t it be better for him to continue believing that he had fooled us all? Was there something closer to the truth than lies, since both revealed each other?

People in front of me were getting into the crowded lifts, and whenever they became a single mass of heads and apologies, the doors would shut and a mysterious abyss would swallow them. I was about to derive a certain lesson from this evocative image when Layla pushed me into the abyss.

I surrendered to an enjoyable descent, wishing it would never end, when the lift doors opened to a large commotion. At the centre of it all, I saw Fatima bleeding from her nose and shouting. It took me time to understand that two men had grabbed her as she was leaving the lift, attacked her and taken away her camera.

We went straight to the police station, where I reported that I had found the statue of Bacchus that had been stolen a quarter of a century before, and named all the witnesses who had been with me. Fatima reported that she had been attacked and her digital camera stolen. She was convinced theft in such a luxurious place would not be for the money but because she had taken pictures of Bacchus in the ninth floor apartment, in the presence of prominent guests and the owner, the most famous perfume maker in the world.

I no longer had any desire to get anything out of this storm. All I wanted was to return to our room in Ahmad Majd’s house and hold Mai in my arms. I urged Layla to hurry home, assuring her that I did not want anything from this situation, neither a court case nor a victory. All I wanted was to embrace Mai. This sudden upheaval made me easy prey to a destructive fear. My heart constricted, and I imagined that I would not find Mai in her bed or that I would find her swimming in a pool of blood. I had a fit as I fought this fear. I did not know why the fits occurred at my moments of fear in particular.

Layla began spooling the lifeline of words that would help me breathe, throwing it out to the depths that had started to swallow me. I stretched out my arm to grab the rope, but my hand was going crooked and bending back. I tried to return it to its normal position with my other hand, but it too froze against my chest. I was totally tied up while Layla continued to talk about Mai, who had taken her first steps, unexpectedly, the previous day. ‘She stood and looked at me. I told her: come on, come to Mama, and she took one step, then another, and then walked all the way to where I was, without smiling or crying, as if she were doing something she had been doing for ages.’

I then saw a face looking at the car window. I saw a garden and a person running with a dog or away from it. Then I could not see anything except a white light, an overwhelming white light that gradually faded away, revealing objects and sounds. I saw Mai extending her tiny hand towards my face. The moment she touched it, I understood everything.

The police called us in the following day. They told us they had found no trace of a Roman statue in the apartment. I told the officer that we should be taken to court for making up a crime. He said amiably, ‘We don’t see any need for that. There’s no complaint against you.’

I smiled dumbly at the faces that surrounded me. Fatima led me out by the arm. I felt a heavy burden lifting off my chest. I might have been worried that Bacchus, in the event of his glorious return, would become a lawsuit that I would have to manage in connection with many things that were beyond me.

‘OK. The best thing is for all of us to retire to their corner, isn’t it?’ I asked Fatima.

She turned towards me and asked me with teary eyes what I meant.

I said that it was normal for such things to happen at the end of a muddled party, where one sees people and things that no one else sees.

Fatima said, ‘It was simple theft. Why are you trying to give it wings?’

‘I was a stone’s throw from achieving my only victory over Al-Firsiwi, but I failed. His story about the courtyard of the village mosque will remain the most plausible.’

We got in the car, and Fatima hurried to wipe her face and get ready as she always did when she was overtaken by anger. She said, without any trace of hesitation in her voice, ‘I will never return to this country to live. I cannot live in a place I do not understand.’

I wished, deep inside, not to believe her, but I failed. Then I quickly felt better because her decision not to come back had nothing to do with me.

When we returned to Ahmad Majd’s house and I told Layla what happened, she reacted by quickly and determinedly packing our suitcases. We did not even need to discuss the matter. We put the suitcases in the car and left. She insisted on driving. I gave in, not wanting to upset her, but she begged me while I was sitting in the back with Mai never to drive again.

‘Promise me, I beg you, never to drive again.’

I told her frankly that I would never give up this poetic machine, and if a fit did not kill me while I was driving, it would while I was doing something else. ‘What’s the difference?’ I asked.

‘The difference is that you won’t be around for me to hate you.’

Layla drove in her deliberate, restrained manner while I played with Mai, teaching her sounds made by birds and animals and play-acting roles from cartoons that only the two of us knew. Mai was excited, and after more than an hour she became tired and began rubbing her eyes. Still she did not give in and concentrated her efforts on making me sleep, placing her cheek on my head the way her mother would do for her, then passing her fingers through my hair, insisting with her half words that I rest. Whenever I moved to evade this obligation, she got upset like a true mother and quickened the stroking of her fingers.

When Layla said we were approaching Settat, Mai said, ‘Shustt, shustt.’ The last thing I heard was Layla’s laughter. Then I woke up and heard her say, ‘We’ve arrived.’

I put Mai to bed and helped Layla get everything in order before going up to my apartment. I entered the large, empty space illuminated by the city lights, and took a deep breath.

2

I woke up exhausted for unknown reasons and thought: no one can do anything for anyone else. At that stage in my life, or that moment of the morning, I had the impression that I was a prisoner of situations I was not responsible for and was unable to get away from. Even when I had all the best intentions in the world to do something, I could not do it. I could not do anything for Fatima, I could not do anything for Al-Firsiwi, I could not save Bacchus and I could not go to Havana. I could not run away to a far-off island with Layla, yet I could not stop thinking of escape as the only way to start a new life.

I said all of that to Layla and she answered sharply, ‘A few months ago you could not think about a new place to live, and here you are now living in it and according to the ridiculous Japanese style of your dreams. Before that, there were loads of things you could not do, but sometimes they happened without a huge effort on your part.’

‘Like what?’ I asked.

‘Our relationship, for example. Many lives had to intersect before you could find the way that led you to me.’

I asked her angrily, ‘And you?’

‘I always knew what I wanted.’ This seemed to me the ideal expression of human happiness: to wake up or not wake up and be able to define exactly what you wanted without random additions and gaps, to say ‘I want to get up now and go to a park’ and to walk with a strong feeling that serenity would certainly be found where the row of eucalyptus trees ended.

For many years I had carried Yacine on my shoulders, and every time I laid my head on the pillow I would decide to bury him. In the dark I would rehearse the rituals of the delayed funeral: I would carry the bier by myself and proceed towards the hole, but when I looked at it, it appeared bottomless. As soon as I lowered the bier into it, I would see Yacine come out and run through a vast cemetery with headstones made of flesh and blood.

Ahmad Majd called me one day. He was in a pitiable condition, searching for words to resume our friendship as if nothing had happened. He said Bahia was very ill and he was taking her to Paris for treatment. His words did not sink in and I did not ask him for explanations. I was not worried about her. I felt as if something were happening to a distant person, and no matter what occurred I would be unable to help. I felt better about that and I realised that powerlessness was, after all, comforting, because it freed you of guilt and always made you the victim.

I called Fatima many times to tell her about Bahia’s illness, but she did not answer and did not contact me. I thought that she too might have disappeared, like Al-Firsiwi and Ibrahim al-Khayati and Essam. I was overcome with a deep fear and called Layla. I told her I wanted to see her immediately because I was afraid she would disappear. She was busy, so we agreed to meet in the evening, though this did not spare me from being troubled the whole day by black thoughts about her disappearance. When we met and I told her that, she caressed my face with her hand and said that I was merely upset because of what was happening around us. She also said that the quarrel with Ahmad Majd had opened a door to fear that we had to shut quickly. I was very happy that she said this, and said it for my sake, knowing full well that Ahmad Majd did not deserve this effort. I wanted to comment on the matter but she begged me not to. We ate quickly and went to a modern dance performance at the French Cultural Centre.

The show was fast and frenetic, the tempo high and athletic. It shifted all the burden on to us, as we shrank back into our seats under the pressure of that devotion of the body that toyed with violence and seduction. I told Layla when we left the show that words were the best means of expression for human beings. There was something too intimate about the body and movement, or a limitation, that prevented the act of expression from making unexpected stupid mistakes.

She said, ‘We are able to do that with violence or love.’

I agreed with little enthusiasm and continued walking, feeling something hot rise from my guts that absorbed me in a kind of material absence. I thought it was the sign of a new fit, but soon realised that part of the show’s choreography had seized my body, which felt possessed by a violent inner storm. We got into the car and Layla ignored me as she drove, and I heard Yacine confiding to me in a clearly stern tone, ‘Now. Now!’

‘Now what?’ I asked.

He repeated insistently, ‘Now!’

I shouted angrily, ‘What now?’

Layla said, scared, ‘What’s with now? What’s with you?’ She pulled the car over to the side of the road, confused.

‘Nothing, it’s nothing. I think I’m tired, that’s all,’ I said.

We continued on our way. Layla had regained her composure and tried to justify the confusion that had taken hold of me. According to her I had internalised the scene of violence in the show, and the slow and clean movements depicting mutual seduction and pleasure had led to a sudden desire to kill.

I said, ‘Yes, it might have been that.’

As a special consolation, she suggested that we sleep in the same place, an idea I deemed a good ending to a trying day.

So here she was on the snow-white bedding, bathed by the glow of a distant lamp, her hand resting on my chest as she slept curled up in the foetal position. I asked myself what love was. For many years I had been unable to identify a feeling connected to this emotion. As I watched her face, radiant in peaceful sleep, I told myself that perhaps love was being with a woman at the right time.

As we were eating breakfast the next day Layla said, ‘You must visit Bahia as soon as possible. It isn’t Ahmad Majd who will make her feel at peace.’

‘No one can do anything for anyone else,’ I said.

‘I don’t like to begin the day in a bad mood,’ she said angrily.

Whenever I travelled from Rabat to Marrakech, I would look out the train window and see places I had known for years, barren fields, square patches of cacti and a scattering of withered eucalyptus trees. Nothing had changed in these poor landscapes, where every now and then I would spot somebody crossing these badlands with the assurance of someone living in paradise. One day the motorway would pass through that arid poetry, and we would have to draw another landscape to put in train windows. The motorway would extend all the way to Agadir, and the journey from there to Tangier would take only eight hours instead of the two days it did before. We would become a small country that could be crossed from north to south in less than a day.

Bahia quietly greeted me when I arrived. She did not look like she was suffering from a fatal illness or the devastating anxiety linked to it. We sat in the garden and she talked to me with amazement about the war waging between her husband and his rival. The latest chapter involved land that was open for development on the mountain road, land that was on the books as security at one of the banks before the ferocious rival got hold of it through scary pressure tactics, fraud and byzantine manoeuvres.

Bahia knew the tiniest details of what she called the new scandal. She was trying to deduce what should be deduced, in the form of a pessimistic analysis of our general condition, which did not seem about to be cured of rampant illnesses like those.

I said, joking, ‘But the wheels are turning, or so I believe. There are no breakdowns, and I only hear stories about the huge fortunes being made here and there. I have not heard so far about a bankruptcy declared or about to be declared.’

‘Bankruptcy is like a terrorist operation,’ Bahia said. ‘Nothing on the horizon predicts it, and then suddenly you hear about it on the news.’

She asked me if I knew about her illness. I nodded and said, ‘It’s an illness like any other illness.’

She was moved for the first time and talked about young Ghaliya. ‘I don’t worry about leaving her alone, but it hurts not to have spent more time with her.’ She said that she had not noticed any emotional attachment on my part towards the child, and added, ‘You don’t like her very much.’

I defended myself, saying that I considered her our baby, but Bahia was not convinced. But said she understood and did not blame me. Human nature was supremely complex, she said, and oddly enough she did not see any logic in all that was happening to her except her illness, because it was the only thing in total harmony with her human condition.

Bahia confessed, without overdone emotion, that she sat every day in the garden and cried. She did not cry for a specific reason, but out of abstract torment where nothing was obvious except her tears. Every time she asked herself why she cried, she would cry even more without finding an explanation. She added, ‘I did not get the life I dreamed of when I was young.’

‘No one gets the life they dreamed of,’ I said to her.

‘I did not imagine that. I was convinced I would get from life exactly what I dreamed.’

I tried to explain that life was better when it remained capable of surprising us.

She laughed and said, ‘As far as surprises go, I got my share and more. Imagine, I marry someone who loves opera and sculpture, and one day I see him cover the walls of our house with photos of the housing compounds he has built, his inauguration ceremonies and meetings to sign financial agreements.’

3

Fatima called from Madrid that evening. All I could detect in her conversation were bits of self-pity for her life and convulsive crying that made her sound drunk. I found it in me to ignore her crisis and face it with some firmness.

‘Why this silly crying?’ I said to her. ‘You’re in good health and able to enjoy music, theatre and cinema. You have a job you love and you live in a European capital. You can sleep with any man you choose. What more do you want from life? Do you think that life is as generous with everyone as it is with you?’

My anger calmed her down a little, and I seized the opportunity to tell her about Bahia’s illness. But when I felt she was about to resume her crying fit, I said loudly, ‘I spent part of today with her and she seemed fine, maybe better than us.’

Fatima insisted that I visit her in Madrid. I told her I would because I too needed space to help me reorganise this mess. I had the impression that as we talked about our plan of action, she got completely over her crisis. When we ended our conversation I was still anxious, though, but then came a text message from her: ‘Thank you, I love you.’

I spent the evening in a small Italian restaurant not far from the tombs of the Saadis. The friends I met were very worked up about rumours concerning the arrest of a gang of drug dealers who controlled the city. One of them said that this would certainly lead to the formation of prostitution rings and sex tourism, and many guesthouses might be shut down as a result. Since we were close to the general elections, the only beneficiary from these security measures would be the religious movement. Marrakech, with all its magical treasures, would then fall victim to the pincers of the Taliban.

Another well-informed friend said, however, that big business would be the real beneficiary of the situation, big business organised as a political and social force. It would use the income it provided, the jobs it created, the publicity it produced and the foreigners it pleased as bargaining chips to obtain comfortable seats in the political arena. He said no one could counteract the religious movement except that group. There would be a new leader of this kind in every major city, and if there was not, one would be created, until this blessed commodity became available all over the country.

Someone else suggested handing the major cities to the Islamists as a solution, in order to make peace with the terrorists. I laughed at his suggestion and told him these two options had nothing to do with each other, because terrorism worked for its own account. If the cities were handed over, they would become psychologically devastated, with explosions as their only amusement.

We quickly abandoned this discussion that lowered our spirits and agreed that our country counted among its leaders geniuses who knew how to manage matters without help from our rotten moods. At midnight we timidly went to one of the city’s hotels to see a famous transvestite from Casablanca, who had come to Marrakech to belly dance.

I was awakened the next morning by the sound of Ahmad Majd’s insistent banging at my door. When I opened it I saw his worried expression, and he told me that Bahia’s condition had deteriorated suddenly. He was taking her to Paris.

We all met in the middle of the big house. Bahia was preparing to leave. She was smiling, playing with young Ghaliya and running her fingers through the girl’s hair. I assumed she was in pain, but I did not have the energy to say anything. I took a cup from the table and poured coffee, unaware in my distress that I was spilling it. I heard Ahmad Majd say, ‘We mustn’t be late for the flight.’

I walked them to the door, hoping they would ask me to stay there for a little while. Bahia did, saying as she hugged me that it might be better for young Ghaliya. I returned to the breakfast table and watched Ghaliya spreading butter on a piece of toast, acting like her mother with her hurried movements and small bites. She had Ahmad Majd’s eyes and Yacine’s round face. Her features revealed a certain joy hidden behind a serious expression. I wondered if this would be my last breakfast in the big house, and the thought upset me. I wondered if the feeling of devastation would be the same at the death of a person I had no relationship with any more. I was surprised by a fit of tears I felt rising from my guts. I withdrew to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, while thinking about a way to breathe outside the big house.

On my way to the railway station, I called Layla. She was not at all nice to me.

‘This is a story you have to put behind you,’ she said, ‘and not immerse yourself in it again as if you had never left. Since you have changed your life, there is nothing more to go back to. Why do you insist on keeping everything in tow for ever?’

‘But I’m not keeping anything in tow. There is only a painful situation that I cannot face in an unemotional manner,’ I said calmly.

She replied angrily, telling me that I walked with my head turned backwards, like a person looking towards the past.

I tried to find a way out of this anger but failed. She then asked if I had spent the night in the big house. When I told her I had, she said, ‘I was sure you would do that. It’s disgusting and vulgar, but you cannot do otherwise!’

I asked her about Mai. She put the receiver in the child’s hands and left us to talk with our voices and first words, not knowing how to end the call.

I finally went to Madrid, but I could not have gone at a worse time: Bahia was undergoing chemotherapy, Layla was angry with me and with everything, and my life was in suspension over something unknown.

I spent happy days with Fatima. We enjoyed Madrid by night, talking nonstop during long dinners. It was all very good for our spirits, as if she and I were undergoing group therapy. We talked about books, films and music. We dug into our small problems and our memories and found forgotten details and treasures that we soon placed above all our other feelings. We did not feel how quickly time was passing till the first week of my visit was over. I called Layla to gauge her mood. I found it was still sullen, and nothing helped change it, neither my talk about the city, its restaurants and its theatres, nor even an offer for her to spend the remaining time of her spring break here with the two girls. Her refusal was categorical and rude, so we ended the conversation under dark clouds.

I patiently tried to recover some warmth in our relationship during conversations over the following days, but I failed. When I was fed up with the situation, I asked her if she still loved me. She told me she did not even love herself. I tried to pursue this thread, but she closed all avenues and said she did not want to talk about the subject any more.

I was constantly thinking about our estrangement, trying to find a way back into the world we had built with a great deal of passion and effort. But I always faced Layla’s insistence on enveloping everything in mysterious silence. I talked with Fatima about it, and she said that maybe things had happened that frightened Layla. I wondered what they could be. She said, ‘I don’t exactly know, but my instinct tells me that something you did or did not do scared her.’

I was disconcerted that Fatima considered me so scary. It made me recall the details of my relationship with Layla as I searched for that fatal moment: how I loved her, and how I lived a terrifying schizophrenia split between two time periods, how the threads of our story were woven from a vague past and a troubled present; my fits, my relationship with Yacine, my work, my risk taking, my family, Al-Firsiwi, Diotima, Bahia, Essam, Mahdi and Fatima. I could not find anything that did not play a direct or indirect role in building our story.

Fatima noticed my depression and said, ‘You will see that it is only a passing crisis. Don’t forget that age too lands painful blows, hitting women especially hard.’

I swallowed my voice and realised fearfully that returning to my apartment in Rabat would be a difficult test of my ability to remain alive.

I then remembered all the lovely moments I had spent with Layla, and I felt that if I did not make love to her as soon as possible, I would die of sadness. I immediately called her number and told her that.

She said angrily, ‘You have to come back first.’

‘I’ll come back immediately,’ I told her.

‘I must still tell you that I have become as frigid as a block of ice!’

I did not tell her that she was the sweetest block of ice in the world. I did not tell her how desolate the world would be without her, nor did I tell her that for some incomprehensible reason I expected something bad to happen but did not know what it was.

That evening I needed to bring back the feeling that had followed our conversation. I was surprised that Layla’s voice was sleepy, and she begged me to call her later; she was exhausted and wanted to eat and go straight to bed. The conversation upset me, and I was overcome with a sudden anger at myself. I had failed to protect this last chance in my life, because, completely unfairly, I was being mistreated by the woman for whom I had given up Marrakech, with whom I had adopted Mai and for whose sake I had read, despite myself, a novel by Saramago five times. As my anger grew, it was evident to me that I deserved better, but since there was no better alternative, I went back to being hard on myself. I felt that everything happening to me was due to the unhappiness I had inherited, passed on from father to son, and that would stay with me to the very end.

To explain to myself what was happening, I imagined a person standing on the bank of a large river who cast his hook and line into the calm waters. Suddenly the line went taut, and the fisherman sensed from the violence of the movements the struggle he would have with the fish. He felt the resistance of the fish, its anger, refusal to submit, sudden thrashing and then compliance, as if the fish was not hooked but had decided to swim towards him. It arrived, floating over the water and jumping in frenzied movements as if to say it was not dead. Then all movement stopped and the line went limp, lying still on the surface of the water, the fish gone.

All the sadness in the world now overwhelmed the man. It chewed him up before spitting him out as wreckage on to the shore. What would the man do? What would he do with all the despair? Suddenly he looked at the flowing river and the reeds bending in the wind, he listened carefully to the rustling of the leaves in the nearby trees, and he became aware with a joyous conviction that this was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. He understood that the fish getting away was the most deeply pleasurable event in his life, and that this sunny day where there was still a river, a sky and trees was exactly his lot in life and there would not be any other. If there were another chance, he would be overwhelmed by all the despair in the world because he would not get a sunny day, a river and trees.

Layla’s sudden distancing in this dramatic, painful and destructive manner was the best thing that could have happened to me. What did I want from this story? To spend the rest of my life in exhausting disagreements in order to learn how to escape the clutches of old age? To devote myself to suffocating the fish? To sew a life tailored to our measurements, which would undoubtedly become too small for our bodies and we would be obliged to rip it up?

What did I want beyond what I had achieved? That first shiver, the response of the fishing line, the beating of the whole body as it welcomed another resisting body, the pleasure that went as far as the desire to kill, the peace offered by pain? And then what? Did we have to spoil the impossible with the crumbs of the possible?

I walked in a street unknown to me, and once I realised I was lost, I went further. I talked to Fatima on the phone, and told her I did not know where I was and did not want to know. If I found a restaurant I liked, I would call her back.

When we finally sat at a table in a noisy restaurant, one that took Fatima more than two hours to find, I was at my best. I was elated by my new condition, happy to have escaped certain death if the relationship had flipped over due to excessive speed. I shared this with Fatima, but she was upset because the hard-to-find restaurant was located in a dangerous part of the city.

‘Since you’re talking about an accident, I will tell you what is usually said in such situations. Wait until your blood cools down, make sure your bones aren’t broken and you’re not suffering from internal bleeding,’ she said.

I laughed at the comparison and then showered Fatima with a flood of jokes and funny stories. I ate and drank like a happy man. At the end of our dinner I said to her, ‘Are you reassured now? Nothing is broken!’

We went back home. As soon as I entered the lift I was overcome with cold shivers. I lay down on the sofa bed trembling, and Fatima covered me up, concerned. I begged her to go to sleep, explaining to her that it might be only a cold because I had walked for a long time in the bitter weather. She agreed with me and decided to give me something for my cold. When she went to fetch the medicine, I thought to myself that it was my body punishing me. I wondered why I risked pretending to have escaped danger when I still consisted of bleeding shattered pieces in a topsy-turvy relationship. I might be sad to such a degree that I wouldn’t stay alive. I would die immediately. I couldn’t bear the idea of living without Layla for even one second. I had known from the first day that with her I had found eternity.

I felt excruciating pain throughout my body, but could not pinpoint its exact source until I realised that my soul had fallen victim to an unbearable agony. At that moment I felt that I was suffocating and losing consciousness, but my pain did not subside. I wanted Layla with me in that bed that was soaked with my sweat, and I wanted her to tell me that she loved me for ever, like she had never loved any other person in the world. I wanted her to threaten me, to say that she would come out of the phone and tell me that she hated me, making sure, however, that I knew she did not mean it.

I opened my eyes to a room full of natural light to see Fatima sitting close to the sofa. She had just returned from the office and was very worried about me. I pulled myself up and asked her the time. She said it was past two in the afternoon. I went to the bathroom and apologised for all the trouble I had caused her.

‘You didn’t stop moaning all night,’ she said. ‘Does anything hurt?’

‘Yes. Everything hurts, but what hurts most, what hurts me to death, is losing Layla.’

‘But you haven’t lost her,’ replied Fatima.

‘I felt something bad in her voice,’ I said.

Fatima told me that she found my delayed adolescence annoying. Her words made me really angry. I quickly shut the bathroom door for fear of doing something crazy. Raising her voice over the sound of the running water, she said, ‘You must first know what happened.’

When I did not reply, she said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m leaving.’

I packed my suitcase and booked my return ticket on the Internet. As I was walking along the cold street looking for a restaurant where I could still eat lunch, I called Layla. I did that quickly, like someone diving into water. In a calm and friendly voice, she said that she missed me very much and that I must return quickly, that this trip and Madrid were meaningless. I discovered that under the influence of her new tone of voice I had changed and become an exhausted person with only one wish: to rest and enjoy the chances for peace with oneself and with others that life has to offer.

4

Before I left Madrid, Spanish newspapers announced the discovery of a link between a Moroccan detainee and the group responsible for the Madrid explosions. Once more, there was an extensive debate about Al-Qaeda in Morocco and whether there weren’t preparations for a terrorist campaign on the Mediterranean’s northern shore.

I was with Fatima in the airport terminal casually discussing these matters, as if we were avoiding talking about personal matters. A man whom I felt I knew but did not recognise approached me. He greeted me warmly and said that he was from my village. To confirm this connection, he mentioned the names of people from Bu Mandara as if they were shining stars in the human firmament. He paused in particular at Al-Firsiwi’s name, and when he mentioned his own father’s name the resemblance I had noticed from the start became apparent. I greeted him anew and wished him a happy holiday in that city that had no connection to happiness.

After he went off, Fatima asked me if I was bothered by his Afghani outfit. I told her that it was national dress by now. She laughed, and once again asked me to take care of myself and to take from life whatever it was willing to grant me and avoid ruining its mood with endless requests. She said, ‘Life is like a woman and does not like that. How long will it take you to grasp this simple principle?’

I objected, saying, ‘Aren’t you ashamed to use the same advice I gave you weeks ago?’

She hugged me for a long time while the departure call concealed her crying. When I entered the gate I raised my hand high without turning back and then walked towards the plane, submitting to an unexplainable feeling that I too did not like even myself.

When the plane levelled off at cruising speed, the man from the airport, my townsman, joined me, invading my privacy with a flood of stupid comments on immigration, life in the West and Islam’s innumerable enemies. I answered him, agreeing to things I had never thought about. All I wanted was to see him return to his own thoughts and leave me alone. But he seemed to like my reactions, and would go away every time the hostess needed room in the aisle and then come back. He found a solution and asked the passenger next to me to exchange seats, which the passenger did gladly to my great annoyance, thus putting my mood, with all its sudden and permanent weaknesses, at the mercy of this man.

During the hour of the flight to Casablanca, matters moved extremely fast. He talked to me without any preliminaries about Yacine, whom he’d known. He said that although he had only met him once, in Paris, he was the kind of person you did not forget.

‘Do you know what happened to him?’ I asked.

‘Of course. Otherwise I would not have talked to you about him,’ he said.

All my intellectual powers were on alert, and I besieged him with hundreds of questions about Yacine, convinced that an exceptional coincidence had finally provided me with an opportunity to find out the truth about what had happened. My voice rose whenever he gave me ambiguous or incomplete answers. I asked him personal questions, such as why he had been in Madrid, whether our encounter was a coincidence, or had he known we were on the same flight.

He was flustered by the unexpected questioning and lost the confidence with which he had talked to me earlier. Even his bearing lost its force and harshness, which had been in harmony with his clothes and severe features. The plane had started its descent to Casablanca airport when he begged me to leave him alone, and told me that he had introduced himself to me spontaneously and should not have done that. But he had been unable to resist the opportunity to talk about Yacine, never expecting his decision to lead to this interrogation.

He went on, ‘Now, I beg you to calm down. I did not know the Yacine who did what he did. I just knew Yacine, period. I can appreciate the fact that nothing in the world interests you more than knowing exactly what happened to him and led to his death. Fine. Do you want us to close this subject the best way? OK, here is my phone number. I’m going to Marrakech tomorrow. Call me there. We might be able to meet a friend of Yacine’s who travelled with him to Afghanistan. Please understand that I have nothing to do with what happened. Beware of getting carried away and drawing conclusions, thinking that I’m involved in any of those things. I’m only trying to help you, because we met due to divine providence, and only God knows the reason. Why are you looking at me like that? Perhaps you think some group has arranged this encounter. But how could any group, no matter how shrewd, co-ordinate all your doings with all my doings? Try to remember the details of your trip and then try to find something that could be considered pre-arranged.’

I said, as if talking to myself, ‘Life as a whole is a pre-arranged story!’

‘What? Do you mean to say that everything is governed by divine will? It is indeed so. If you only knew where I was going before I decided on this direction.’

I looked down at the runway and saw it surrounded by high vegetation. I was absent-minded to the point of thinking that the plane was taking off for Madrid. It sometimes seemed to me that life required that we listen again to some of its elements by replaying the record. Then, when the plane reduced speed and banked right towards the airport, many scenes came to mind.

My neighbour was getting ready to leave the plane and said nervously, ‘Don’t forget to call me. A coincidence is better than a thousand appointments. We might never have met. One of us might have died without ever having known the other existed!’

I thought that would have been much better than this suspicious encounter.

I called Layla many times, but she did not answer. That evening I knocked at the door of her apartment, but she was not there. She called me late and told me her daughter was spending part of her vacation with her father in Marrakech. She had had to take Mai and stay there, to be close to her.

I said somewhat stupidly, ‘I’m back!’

‘I know. I too will be back in two days. Do you know, Mai cannot stand being separated from her sister? Here, we all go out together, like this evening. It would be very nice, were it not for the attitude of the “first lady”.’

‘I’ll come to Marrakech tomorrow,’ I said.

She replied angrily, ‘That’s all we need! Listen, I can’t see you here anyway.’

I was angry as well. ‘I can’t see you either. I will be busy with another mess!’

When I arrived in Marrakech, I went to see Bahia. She had lost her hair due to the chemotherapy, but she dealt with the situation with studied elegance. I had the impression that she was on her way to recovery. Even more than that, she had regained her confidence in her ability to defeat the illness. As we were eating lunch, she said that she talked to Ibrahim al-Khayati by phone, since new rules allowed this. The three of us talked at length about what should be done for Ibrahim now that the date had been set for the start of his trial. Ahmad Majd said we would ask for his temporary release and then see what would happen.

Bahia returned to her conversation with Ibrahim and told me privately, while we were drinking our coffee, that he wanted to talk to me regarding an important matter related to Yacine. My heart convulsed, and I would have told Bahia about my appointment with the man from Bu Mandara in the afternoon if Ahmad Majd hadn’t interrupted to tell me it was better to visit Ibrahim in person than talk to him on the phone.

I left the big house for the Nahda Café, but as soon as I got into the taxi, I realised that there was still a whole hour before the four o’clock appointment. I decided to walk a while before going to the café. As I walked I remembered Ibrahim’s message and wondered what he could tell me about Yacine. I imagined he might have met someone in prison who had known Yacine, or that he had obtained information from someone who knew me. I imagined that someone was using him in a case related to Yacine’s friends. Then I considered how these separate elements had coincided by chance, one in Salé prison and the other in the Madrid airport, and whether there was any possible connection between the two stories. Or rather, how there could not be a connection between them.

At that moment I thought that my encounter with the man from my village would be more productive after I had talked with Ibrahim. I might learn from Ibrahim something that would help me in my meeting with this person. I returned home, but unfortunately was unable to reach Ibrahim on the phone, no matter how much Bahia and I tried, and I was almost fifteen minutes late for my appointment. When, out of breath, I arrived at the café, I did not find anyone there. I sat down, depressed, and waited half an hour, then I got up heavily and left the place, preferring to think he had come by earlier and, not finding me there at the agreed time, had left.

By seven o’clock in the evening I had called him over and over, reaching only his answering machine. I thought a thousand times about Layla and wandered the streets aimlessly for more than two hours. I was convinced that what remained of my destiny on that difficult day was for a car to hit me and put an end to my inadequacy. At that very moment Layla called.

‘Tell me please,’ she said, her voice loud over the phone, ‘I beg you, say you are in Marrakech.’

‘Let’s meet immediately,’ I said.

I needed time to get ready for this encounter — not to make the logistical arrangements but to prepare for those first moments when we do not know whether we are about to begin one thing or resume another. There are those other moments when we have to submit every gesture to a precise test to understand what is coming back to us whole, unabridged, and what might have been diminished or exceeded its familiar limits, or has simply become the gestures of a different person.

We were in a room in a quiet tourist hotel and every now and then we heard the mumbling of people drinking around the swimming pool. We made love with shy movements as if we were doing it for the first time, but also with a devout intensity, as if we were apologising for something that had happened to us or something we had done. At some moment of our pleasure, I was overcome with a desire to do something more than love, something that would make Layla seep into my breath and my pores, into every part of my existence and settle there for ever.

I was kissing her, looking deeply into her eyes, following the vibrations of this desire to its end. I did not notice in the eruption of passion that she was crying. It might have been because she detected everything that raged within me, or maybe because she had found me again after a temporary loss.

I got a call from the man from Bu Mandara around midnight. He apologised for missing our appointment, but Yacine’s friend lived very far away. I was certain I would apologise to him as well and tell him I was not interested in this encounter any more — which I had not wanted in the first place — but he suggested meeting at ten the next morning at the entrance of the Club Med Hotel. I agreed reluctantly. After my experience with Layla that evening, I did not need anything else. When Layla asked me about the matter, I told her about it, purposely filling it with humour and irony. She got upset, wondering whether I was aware of all the dangers lurking in a contact of this kind.

‘Consider this,’ she said. ‘By chance you meet a young man at Madrid airport, and by chance he becomes the intermediary for an encounter with a possible friend of Yacine’s. Don’t you smell a trap of sorts?’

I told her, ‘I don’t have any logical reason to suspect that.’

Sleep allowed us to resume something that had nothing to do with the strange meeting. For long hours, no dream, no tossing or turning, no stray movement succeeded in separating us, until daylight bathed the two of us under our veil of anxiety.

As I was getting ready to leave, Layla asked me, ‘What do you expect from this encounter?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I only want to hear from someone who knew Yacine what happened. How he adopted this cause and how he lived in its worlds, how he was exposed to what he was exposed to, how they handled his corpse and what they did with it. I want to hear all those details and more. I want to be filled with them and with the truth those details represent. If this happens, I will go through true mourning and the subject will be closed for ever.’

Layla took Mai from me and went to the other room. She called back, ‘I don’t know what will be closed, but I’m not reassured at all.’

Mai cried nervously. Layla scolded her and gave her to me, almost throwing her into my arms. This made her crying worse, so Layla came back to take her, apologised for her actions and for acting more childishly than Mai. I waited until the small storm had passed, and then I moved close to Layla and begged her to spare me an argument. I couldn’t stand that and I truly wanted to get out of the tunnel I was in.

‘You won’t be able to get out of the tunnel if you keep going back and forth inside it,’ she said.

‘It’s not like you imagine. I see a distant light but I’m not strong enough to reach it.’

Layla started gathering her things, getting ready to go back to Rabat, and I took advantage of this to say, ‘I’ll go to my appointment, then catch up with you.’

She replied as she buried her face in the open suitcase, ‘If you don’t tell the police before you go, don’t bother catching up with us!’

I stood at the door, hurt by this uncalled-for remark. I turned my back to the noise that Mai created as she tried to follow me. I left, confident that I would arrive at the light I could see in the tunnel.

5

I arrived at Jama al-Fnaa square half an hour before my appointment. I went towards one of the entrances of the medina and walked in its morning calm, before the shops opened and calls and shouts filled the air.

I was moved by something I could not specify, a combination of apprehension for what was coming and pain for what had happened. I felt light and free, contrary to what I expected. I stared at the faces of the passers-by, almost certain they could not see me, as if I had become a mere vision checking the conditions of the city. I saw a dark, lowly person arguing with an olive seller, assuring him that no one would buy this acidic product so early in the day. I heard the seller tell him, calmly, that if he knew how early in the day Tanjia was prepared, he would not open his mouth with stupidities. This seemingly unnecessary dialogue cheered me up. Despite its uselessness, the alley would have been desolate without it. A woman came out of a side alley and mumbled a series of swearwords I could not make out, before a young girl who did not seem to have had time to finish dressing caught up with her. She bent over and kissed the first woman’s hands and head, trying to placate her with words that would have softened a heart of stone. I tried hard to grasp something from this incident, but to no avail. I was saddened by all the tenderness bursting from the sleeping city, as if I was eager to have a part of it but failed to grab hold. Then I found myself face to face with a child who appeared to be able to see me.

‘What did the man mean?’ he asked.

‘Which man?’ I said.

‘The one who was looking from the roof.’

‘What did he say?’ I asked.

‘He said, “Has the beneficiary of the trust arrived?” ’

‘Does the matter concern you?’

‘It does not. We just want there to be something understandable this morning!’

I resumed my walk, pleased by the child’s curiosity, then I retraced my steps so as not to miss my appointment.

Two buses were parked near the Club Med Hotel, whose façade was almost totally covered by a poster announcing an international film festival. Nearby were a large screen and a stage that seemed huge in the empty square. I glanced at the entrance of the hotel and alongside it, but I did not see the man from my hometown. I tried to imagine the features of the young man who was Yacine’s friend, but failed. I noticed a person walking hesitantly in front of the hotel. I expected him to be the man I was meeting, but when I got close to him he asked me the way to Bab al-Jdid.

The man did not show up at the agreed time, nor more than an hour later. This hurt me, and I wondered if I had fallen victim to the games of heartless teenagers. Perhaps they were watching me from their hiding places. I remembered the young man who had let me believe I was his father from an old relationship, and I thought that maybe at a certain age we become the victims of such games, and their catalyst. Right then, I was willing to put up with the abuse of the world in exchange for a meeting with the two young men, to save me from this wasted morning. I saw the person. He was facing the buses, wearing a Pakistani shirt, a dirty taqiyah, a counterfeit Nike tracksuit top, and sports shoes of the same brand. I thought he was the same man I had met at the Madrid airport, who had been willing to connect me to a thread that would lead me to Yacine, for no reason other than that he too was a son of Bu Mandara and wanted to do a good deed for me. Well, for God’s sake first. There was nothing behind this except lessening the world’s misery and losses. But where was the expected friend, the cornerstone of this story and the justification for its existence in the first place? Why hadn’t he arrived? Could he have been too scared of this strange encounter? What would scare him? Maybe he thought I would contact the police, as Layla had suggested. He would be right to think like that. Even if we discounted that possibility, there was no place for a relationship between us not built on fear. We would fear each other to eternity.

The man turned suddenly and I realised it was not him. I noticed his Pakistani shirt bulged out slightly at both sides, which forced him to hold his arms away from his body, as if he were about to pick something up off the ground. I noticed his ferocious expression, as if he had just finished a violent fight. He was watching me. When I got close to him, assuming he was the young man who had known Yacine and who had been sent on his own by the man from my hometown, he turned like a robot and walked towards the street behind the hotel. I could think of nothing better to do than follow him, in the belief that there was something fatalistic and inescapable about this act of submission. I walked behind the man thinking about Layla; it seemed extremely strange not to be thinking about Yacine and Yacine alone. I sent her a short message on my phone: ‘No one turned up for the appointment. I love you.’

The man was walking leisurely towards the Koutoubia, and I was forced to run after him. Then I slowed down, waiting for him to get further away before catching up again. Koutoubia Square was filling up with pedestrians, traders and loiterers. The number of men who looked like my ‘friend’ increased, and I strained to keep him in sight. At one point he stopped by an open-air bookseller and started leafing through old books and some magazines, which, to my surprise, were women’s magazines. When he resumed his walk it was almost noon and the sun was strong. At that moment I saw him walk in the direction of Bab al-Jdid. I remembered the other young man who had asked me the way to Bab al-Jdid a little earlier. Did he have anything to do with this man? And why?

The man quickened his pace, and I did the same until we reached the Hotel La Mamounia. There in front of the main entrance he stopped beside a taxi and bent down to talk to the driver through the window. He then crossed the street and walked towards a garden that belonged to the hotel. I stood waiting for him without knowing whether he would come back, without knowing whether I would follow him again. He came out suddenly, turned right, and then exited through the gate in the railings and crossed the street, heading towards the pavement that led to the big hotels. I followed him quickly, struck by a crazy idea about the strange fit of his shirt. I wondered if he wasn’t getting ready to blow himself up with a suicide bomb in a specific place, and was looking for a significant mass of foreigners to carry out his task. No sooner had this idea become clear to me than the man disappeared. I ran with all my force along the long pavement until I reached the entrance leading to the hotel district. I went through it, moving fast and thinking about the hotel I had gone to, where I had not seen the person I was supposed to meet. I went then in the direction of Al-Saadi Hotel, then the Kempinski, then the Atlas.

I thought of calling Layla and asking her to warn the police about the possibility of someone getting ready to blow himself up imminently near some hotel. I was afraid to alarm her, though, about something that might not be true. I was soon convinced that the man must have gone to the Conference Centre and the Meridien Hotel, where the guests and organisers of the film festival were gathered. At this hour most of them would be eating a leisurely breakfast after a long night and too little sleep, or eating a light lunch while basking half-naked in the sun.

I moved to the other pavement and dashed towards the triangle of death, as I imagined it, not knowing what I could do if I arrived to find the man about to detonate his deadly belt. Once again I thought about calling Layla or Bahia or Ahmad Majd, but was unable to access their numbers in my state of confusion and fear. I reached the door of the Conference Centre and found the place suffused by the calm of the noon hour. I was swimming in sweat, looking with shifting eyes for the slow-paced man who was not wearing socks with his trainers and could not let his arms hang down in a natural way. But he was not there or anywhere else I could see, where I could meet him and see his face turning yellow as the moment of action approached.

I returned to the Olive Gardens near the Hotel La Mamounia. I wanted to get away from the places where I might meet people I knew. I wanted to return to the starting point where I had an appointment with a person I did not know, who was supposed to tell me about the mysterious time that had swallowed Yacine. Who had arranged these impossible appointments? Why was I following a man with whom I had no connection, and about whom I did not know anything that gave me the right to expect all of this evil from him?

I arrived at the Olive Gardens exhausted. I sought their humid shade and walked aimlessly, thinking what would happen if I took a taxi and heard the breaking news about a faceless and nameless suicide bomber and the carnage he had inflicted. I shivered when I remembered that I could have informed the police about him.

At some point, still stunned by that possibility, I felt something oppressive behind me, as if someone were breathing heavily. I turned in a panic, but there was no sign of anyone following me. I turned to look right and left, and noticed a body moving between the trees. When I moved quickly to catch up with him, I had the impression it was Yacine chasing someone. I ran after him and called his name every time I saw him, but he neither responded nor stopped. I was upset with him for not answering, and for betraying the promise he had made to me to disappear for good. I was burning with anger and ran faster, forcing him to quicken his evasive movements. I wondered why he had come back at that moment and why he was concocting this stupid chase. Was he the one who had organised this story down to the last detail? What was he enticing me towards? I wondered if Yacine was planning something for me, pushed by some group. And who was that group? I then remembered the scenario in which I imagined Yacine still alive after his death notice, shedding his identity with an imaginary death in order to reappear with another identity and another plan. I was confused by what was happening around me, and I was scared to have Yacine participate, before my eyes, in a bloody event where I would be a victim.

I returned once more to the Olive Gardens, looking for the person I thought was Yacine. I had used all the strength I had left to chase a ghost that had appeared and then disappeared. Then I was overcome with a great fear, lest the vision turn out to be a devilish manoeuvre to distract my attention and involve me in a false chase, while another person was preparing his attack perfectly. In the midst of all this overwhelming confusion, I heard a beautiful voice chanting Qur’anic verses. The voice sounded familiar and close, and I realised I had heard it more than once before this day. But I was unable to recall whose voice it was or the circumstances in which I had heard it. I thought of Ibrahim al-Khayati. What did he know about all this? Had he received a message from Yacine about the dates in Marrakech? I said to myself that this was the missing link. There was something that had not reached me, something that had got lost on its way to me. There was a thread connecting all these separate events that I had not seen until now. I was thus at the heart of a story that I did not understand and where I was not in control of my own role.

I reached the end of the Gardens, right in front of the iron gate leading to the lighthouse. No one but me came out of the shade of the olive trees. Had Yacine been no more than a vision born out of my confusion? Had the person I followed been simply an externalised inner image that I had let loose in the city? I was about to give in to those desperate suppositions when I saw him at the end of the inner pathway of the lighthouse, walking very slowly with the steps of an exhausted man, defeated and desperate. I headed towards him once more, trying to convince myself that it was not him and that he did not resemble the man I had lost. It seemed to me that his shirt was no longer bulging as it had been and his arms fell normally to his sides. There was only a muscular pride to his walk. But when I got close to him, I changed my mind; when we were a few steps away from the basin, I was sure it was him and that something under his shirt was making him walk like a robot.

He reached the edge of the basin, raised his face towards the sun, turned to face the qibla and prayed without removing his shoes, like in a war. This detail in particular was what changed me into the force of a tornado; I could hardly recognise myself or what I had been until that moment. I remembered nothing but a word I had heard from Yacine months ago on our way back, Layla and me, from a dance show — ‘Now, now, now.’

Now, I said to myself and I took off like an arrow towards the person who was praying fervently, his eyes closed. I surrounded him with my arms and pushed him towards the basin.

At that critical moment when he took off from the ground, the man turned his head directly towards me, and, for an instant, behind his thick beard and fierce look, I saw the face of Essam, more terrified than he had ever been, moments before a cold white cloud took us in its awesome detonation.