“What are you saying?” she asked. “I don’t follow you. Listen to him, Maxim. He is saying things I don’t understand.”
Maxim handed the pipe to the other man and looked at us.
“What are you two saying?” he asked.
“I don’t understand him.”
“I told her that addiction’s bad,” I said. “Once you’re addicted to something, you become a prisoner—meaning that you can’t get rid of it. Things like patriotism, sex, and smoking.”
Maxim stared at us in bewilderment. Because of the effect the kif was having, he had nothing to say, but even so he was listening to me.
“I don’t understand what he’s talking about,” the girl went on. “The way he’s talking sounds like philosophy.”
“Let him talk,” Maxim said. “Weird and wonderful things that lots of people never talk about. Ah yes, keep talking about habits. We all get used to doing things. What you’re saying is true; maybe we’ve even got used to the way you talk. Isn’t that so . . . ? What’s your name again? Oh yes, Ali. Here you’re all called Ali. I’m a newspaper photographer. What’s your job?”
“Teacher.”
“That’s a great job. Does it pay well?”
“Not really.”
“That’s a shame!” he said, “Teachers and professors should be well looked after. I know of French professors who have the same issues as you’re describing. Thank God I didn’t become a teacher like you. She’s is a teacher too. Her father’s a grocer; he’s from the Pyrenees.”
“Excuse me,” I told Maxim, “I need another cup of tea.”
I gestured to the waiter, but he did not come for a while. A barefoot girl came over. She was wearing nasty, cheap Moroccan garb, but even so her legs looked clean and plump in the bright sunlight.
The young man did a double take.
“You can sit down,” she told him.
“Thanks.”
With that they both sat on the floor. He started looking for something inside his bag. At this point, I spotted Fatima coming in. That reminded me of “They ripped their girl’s pocket. Oblivious to the sanctity of womanhood.”
Her breasts were almost hidden and her chest was semi-flat—a man, a she-man, her gaze roaming everywhere. Once she had spotted me, she came over and squeezed in beside me.
“So here you are.”
“Yep!”
“I’ve been looking for you for ages. I asked for you at the hotel.”
“Hotels are just for sleeping,” I said, “It’s wonderful to discover other worlds. This is Maxim, and this is Brigitte.”
Maxim begun to scrutinize her with his heavy, hashish-laden gaze. He took another pipe, thrust it under his long nose, then immediately handed it to Fatima.
“Great hashish!” she said.
She did not act shocked; actually, she was not of this world . . . I had the feeling that she had no sense of the world around her. She stood up and went over to say hello to a long-haired man with a ponytail tied back with a bright yellow rubber band.
“He’s Italian,” she said when she came back. “Poor guy! He was robbed. He’d like to continue his trip into the great African unknown. He says he has no money, but he’s determined to continue with his journey.”
“He’s a liar.”
“Don’t say that. They’re all that way. They don’t have a penny, but they still travel. I don’t know how they do it. A month or two later, they’re sending you postcards from somewhere else in the world.”
“I know, but not from the African jungle.”
“Oh, that’s something else.”
The muscled waiter was wrestling with a thin young man and cursing him in English. The elephant and the ant, the fly and the bull—except that this time the fly could not defeat the bull. Four or five people crowded around them while everyone else stayed where they were, watching the action. Someone else paid the amount that the ant owed for the drinks he had had.
“He always does that,” the elephant trumpeted in Arabic, addressing the aged owner. “He splits just as soon as he’s finished drinking. Let me give him a good thrashing. I know these hippie types all too well!”
The old man gave a hand gesture and muttered something calmly . . .
“I heard this old man used to be a spice dealer,” Fatima said, “and then he got rich in Essaouira. That all happened when he’d converted this place into a hotel and café.”
“He’s at death’s door.”
“Why am I not surprised?!”
“I wish I were his wife. I’d know how to crush his balls for him . . .”
“You’re a teacher. Such idle illusions are hardly appropriate!”
“We’ve all turned into illusions,” she said, gesturing angrily. “You’re one, and so is this person and that one and so on . . .”
“What’s she saying?” asked Maxim.
“That we’re all illusions,” I told him in French.
“She’s right!” he replied.
One is as crazy as another, I told myself. The young man at the bar was still shaking because he was afraid of the elephant. The music blared on, and customers kept arriving and leaving, some with shoes, others without.
3
THAT NIGHT I imagined the world as a graveyard in motion. Passersby on the narrow street looked like worms crawling their way over a gigantic, putrid corpse—the earth. They were all talking, frowning, and laughing, and, needless to say, hatching schemes against each other.
Somewhere else on this earth, in another street, some men are certainly busy killing each other, while others are blackmailing the weak, either by force or trickery. It’s a game that is repeated throughout the ages, now adopting a serious guise.
How hard it is to talk in the first person; it’s so scary for not only the self but also readers who keep searching in any number of books throughout their lives for something or other. But they never find it. After spending time procreating, they all land up in the grave. So it’s back to the start . . .
Fatima stood there chatting to Maxim and his girlfriend, who were both seated about four spaces away from me.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked me. “Why don’t you join us?”
“I was thinking about lots of things.”
“Let’s all talk about them,” she suggested. “Maybe they’re problems we could solve together.”
“They aren’t the kind of social things we can solve that way.”
“I don’t understand,” she replied, “but never mind! They’re suggesting that we get a couple of bottles of wine and go with them to their hotel room. I’ve suggested that we buy some grilled sardines first.”
“As you like,” I said. “Maxim seems to be clever.”
“Definitely.”
We made our way down the teeming narrow alleys. There were lots of local women wrapped up in white; only their pale arms and kohled eyes were visible. Other women were wearing European clothes, but they were mostly teenagers and students.
Fatima told me that she knew a Jew in town who sold wine. Alcohol could only be sold in three bars and the hotel; other liquor stores had either been closed by the local authorities or had their alcohol licenses revoked.
“All those women in wraps are whores,” she added. “Essouira women are just like the ones in Khenifra.”
“What’s that you’re saying?”
“You can hear!”
“I’m not hearing anything,” I replied. “Don’t say that to Maxim, or else he’ll laugh at us.”
“Why shouldn’t I tell him?” she asked. “A woman who dances never covers her face.”
In the end she did not tell him. Instead she kept kicking pebbles down the street.
We found ourselves in front of a small store, its brown door part of the newly whitewashed wall. “From this place?” she yelled at them both.
&nbs
p; “Go in by yourself,” she told Maxim. “He doesn’t sell to Muslims. If he sees us together, he won’t sell you the wine. He only sells to foreigners and policemen.”
“What a weird country!” Maxim replied. “I don’t understand a thing. I’ve seen Muslims drinking in bars. What’s the difference between a bar and a grocery store?”
“Oh, dear,” she said, “if you want to drink, then don’t try to understand!”
“It’s just a question,” he said. “I’m not talking about politics. I realize you’re not allowed to talk about that. I’m simply talking about normal things like eating, drinking, and sleeping. You mean, we can’t even talk about them either!”
“In this country,” said Fatima, “you’re obliged to eat, drink, and shut up . . . and I mean drink water, not wine.”
“But people drink wine.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “For Muslims alcohol is forbidden.”
“But you all drink!” Maxim said. “In every Moroccan city, I’ve seen that with my own eyes.”
“I’ll explain it all to you later.”
“Buy three or four bottles,” I said as I lit a cigarette. “Later on you’ll understand.”
“Hashish is forbidden in our country too,” Maxim said, “and yet you can smoke it freely in alleys, streets, and cafés. So what’s the difference? Hashish is more dangerous than alcohol.”
“You’ll understand.” I said. “I feel like a drink. You can go and talk to the Jew now.”
“I’ll go and talk to the Jew,” Maxim said. “I realize that Jews get involved in everything, even the snow at the North Pole. I come from a Jewish family that converted to Christianity a century ago.”
With that Maxim disappeared inside the dark store.
“He loves drinking,” Brigitte said, “but he hasn’t drunk a lot in Morocco. You should see the way he drinks back there.”
“In France, you mean?”
“Yes. He loves Bordeaux wine. He’s just like my father, although my father drinks too much. He drinks fast so he can get drunk as quickly as possible.”
By the port there were rows of meat grills. Long benches had been set up close by, and Moroccans and foreign hippies were sitting there, speaking a host of different languages and devouring hot sardines savored with squeezed lime juice. Other people preferred sitting on the ground near a lake that reeked of sardines; all around you could hear flies buzzing. Maxim trailed behind us, carrying a plastic bag. He looked distracted but showed no signs of being tired or anything else.
“People prefer eating sardines hot,” Fatima told me, “straight from the fire to their guts—from sea to fire to stomach. By the time they get cold, they’ve lost a lot of their flavor.”
“Let’s eat a bit,” Brigitte suggested, “and then we can take the rest of it with us.”
“Good idea!”
The two girls decided the whole thing. All we two men had to do was go along with the plan. Nets were spread out on the sidewalk a few meters away—fishing boats, sea, island, horizon, then another world beyond that horizon, America. Perhaps on the opposite east coast shore in America there were also people at the same time, eating sardines and thinking about us, telling themselves that the world is small and the only thing dividing us is a waterway.
Fish glistened in the sunlight as they were emptied into boxes right in front of us, while other tempting seafood items like crabs, shrimp, and scallops were being carefully collected. People kept crowding around, some sitting, others standing, as they watched the fish being unloaded from the boats. They may also have been bartering; I don’t know. Everywhere you could smell grilled sardines; everyone was devouring them with relish. The hippies did not like eating them with bread, something the grillers were well aware of. That is why the hunks of bread were given to the Moroccans.
We ate and took some sardines away with us. Fatima advised me not to eat hot chili, but, in spite of her advice, I did eat one. I’m still sweating.
“Didn’t I tell you?” she asked, sensing my discomfort. “You’re destroying your stomach and health.”
“But it gives you an appetite.”
“It’s better to eat when you’re hungry.”
“Next time I’ll do that.”
“Are you joking?”
“No, I swear. With women like you there’s no joking.”
“What’s the difference?”
“You know!”
“Are you two having a fight?” Maxim asked with a laugh.
“No. She’s giving me a lecture on hot chili.”
“Oh, great!” he said. “Women can give lectures on anything, even hot chili. That bitch behind us sometimes gives me lectures even though she’s no good at talking. But when it’s time for the lecture, her tongue cuts loose. The problem is that I’m not a good student or listener.”
She was sitting close to him and heard him talking loudly about her. Even so she said nothing; it was not yet time for her lecture. The other woman stopped talking about the evils of hot chili. We walked down a whole series of narrow, labyrinthine alleys till we reached the Haven of Rest Hotel where Maxim and Brigitte were staying. The clerk was dozing behind the wooden screen, with the key rack behind him. He roused himself with a yawn.
“Not allowed,” he told Maxim.
“What?”
He pointed at Fatima. “That woman can’t go into a hotel room with males,” he said.
“What are you saying, you pimp?” Fatima asked in Arabic.
The clerk looked startled. He probably was not expecting such a reaction, but he recovered his self-confidence.
“What you’ve just said isn’t polite,” he told her. “You seem to be from a decent family. I’m simply following the hotel owner’s instructions.”
Then he craned forward to look inside the plastic bag on the counter in front of him. “Let me have a bottle,” he went on, “and I can pretend I didn’t see anything.”
“Good God!” Fatima said, “You won’t get a single drop.”
“What’s going on?” Maxim asked.
“He’s asking for a bottle.”
“Simple enough, isn’t it!”
The clerk smiled as Maxim took out a bottle and handed it to him. With the bottle clutched to his chest, the clerk turned his attention away and went back to his seat, as happy as a baby. There was no more protest, no following of owner’s instructions, and no worries about the police. See no evil, hear no evil. We all went up to the room, and Brigitte closed the old red curtains. Maxim put the bottles on the small table next to an old chair and sink with a piece of mirror behind it on the wall.
“Okay, now we should relax,” Maxim said. “Ali, give me a hand, and we’ll put this mattress on the floor.”
Fatima jumped up. “Let him be,” she said. “I don’t think he can lift it.”
She grabbed the mattress by two corners, Maxim did the same on the opposite side, and I took the middle. With that we moved the mattress to the floor. Brigitte watched the whole thing in bewilderment; she seemed scared of something. The three of us sat cross-legged on the mattress, but Brigitte chose to sit on the chair. Fatima put the soggy grilled sardines on a newspaper on the floor, then handed Brigitte the only glass which was by the sink under the mirror.
“I only want one glass of wine,” she said. “If Fatima has any hashish, I’d much prefer that.”
“I’ve got a small piece, but it’s enough to make an entire tribe high. Come and sit down here with us. Don’t stay perched up there like a stork.”
“I prefer the chair for now.”
“As you wish!”
Maxim used his fingernails to open the bottle and poured himself a swig.
“It’s good,” he said, smacking his lips.
“It’s only vin ordinaire.”
“It’s still good.”
Fatima took out the piece of hashish wrapped in a piece of paper, opened it, and begun to burn the edges. After going through her entire ritual, she started smoking wit
h Brigitte and Maxim. I preferred not to smoke.
“Why aren’t you smoking?” Maxim asked.
“When I’m drinking, it doesn’t agree with me. It can make me vomit or give me a bad headache.”
“You know your own self better than anyone else.”
But how do I know myself? Who among us really knows himself? Many a time I’ve kidded myself that I do. I’m well aware of certain habits and chronic urges that control my behavior. But such things quickly propagate and generate still more habits and urges. I’m always surprised that they are coming from me, as though from someone else.
“Know myself! That’s a joke.”
“What are you saying?” Maxim asked as he handed me the glass.
“Nothing. All I said was that I really know myself.”
“It’s wonderful for people to know themselves.”
“Never do anything that’ll cause you harm.”
Brigitte stood up and went over to a bag in the corner to look for a radio. When she turned it on, first there was a hissing noise, then came the music. She turned it up, but Maxim asked her to turn it down again. She immediately did so.
“You’re just like Mr. Seguin’s goat in the story,” he told her. “You always behave like a child. I’ve no idea what you do with your students in class.”
She gave him a scared look, and her expression made it clear that she was upset. I noticed tears welling in her eyes.
“You’re always being nasty to me, Maxim. What do I do to you?”
“You’re just like a lump of dough. Be more like Fatima: smoke some hashish and shut up.”
Putting the radio down on the table, she went over, gave him a kiss, and sat next to him. Maybe he felt a bit embarrassed, I don’t know, but that’s what I thought. Fatima was not paying any attention to what was going on around her; she was just enjoying the hashish. After handing the joint to Brigitte, she leaned her elbows on the mattress, stretched out her legs on the floor, and started staring at the ceiling while her body swayed to the rhythm of the music—which continued uninterrupted by any words from the announcer. “Fantastic music!” Brigitte said. “It must be the Gibraltar radio station.”
“No,” I responded. “It’s either Spanish or else Rabat’s international station. You can only pick up the Gibraltar station in northern Morocco.”