Street of Thieves

They were taking the 7:30 train the next morning for Marrakesh, which they’d reach after ten hours and one changeover in Casa; I supposed they’d get to their hotel around seven at night, Judit might not go online right away, she’d need time to find an Internet café or Wi-Fi, so I couldn’t expect a reply before, at best, nine o’clock. If she replied. I almost decided to take the train myself to accompany them to Marrakesh; the ticket cost 200 dirhams, maybe a little less by bus, but then I’d have to pay for the hotel, eat, I didn’t know anyone there, Sheikh Nureddin’s advance would have lasted two days. And above all I was afraid of putting on too much pressure and spoiling the little I had been able to win. I just had to be patient. Write to her, and again, not too much.

The next day, after a hideous night interrupted by nightmares, hanged men and waves of blood, I went down to the sea; I spent most of the day reading a thriller, sitting on a rock; a bright April sun warmed the seawall. I managed to concentrate on my reading; at times I would lift my eyes from the page to observe the ferries, in the distance, between the new harbor, Tarifa, or Algeciras.

At night I watched Spanish TV, switching between the Andalusian and the national channels, trying to pay attention to the language, to soak it in; no one from the Group reappeared, neither Bassam nor Sheikh Nureddin. I checked my messages God knows how many times, no news of Judit; I ended up going to bed and even managed to fall asleep.

RESTLESS night; nightmares; still that image of the hanged man. After waking, a note from Judit; she tells me that Marrakesh is wonderful, humming, mysterious and animated. The train journey was very pleasant, Morocco is a magnificent country. She sends hugs and kisses too, see you soon.

I replied immediately.

I don’t remember my actions or movements that day, as if the too-luminous, too-noisy event of the night before left all others in shadow, against the light. I must have done the usual, read, walked a little, surfed the web.

At seven-thirty that night, I was in front of the TV; I had seen photographs of a destroyed, ripped-apart café, tables overturned, chairs scattered; images of the half-deserted Jamaa el-Fna Square, except in one corner, where onlookers were gathered outside a police cordon; ambulances and fire trucks were coming and going with their sirens blaring and on the upper floor there was a terrace and a ruined roof, a sign half-torn off that read, in French and Arabic, Café Argan. The subtitles of the Spanish news channel kept saying Atentado en Marrakech: al menos 16 muertos. I spent the night between the TV and the computer, trying to find out more — by ten o’clock I was reassured, there were no Spanish people among the victims, most of them were French. It was indeed a bomb attack, not a suicide bomber as they’d thought at first, said the online news sites. In one particularly horrible photo, the corpse of a man was stretched out among the rubble; the photo was on all the websites. The terrorists hadn’t yet been arrested; French and Spanish policemen would come lend a hand to their Moroccan colleagues. President Sarkozy offered his condolences to the families; the King did as well.

Even if I was reassured about Judit, I was terrified by these images. The numbers came through at night, sixteen dead, including eight French citizens. A catastrophe for Morocco, according to the papers. There were fewer tourists already because of the political unrest, this massacre wasn’t going to encourage them to return. It seemed pretty indecent to me to talk about the economy when all these people were dead.

Confusedly, I hoped Bassam had nothing to do with any of it. He still hadn’t come back to the Group; neither he nor the Sheikh, no one. I remembered his phrases from the day before yesterday, an attack, something people would remember, push things to confrontation — impossible.

I wrote another email to Judit, asking for news about her; she replied almost immediately, to tell me they were fine, they were in the square when the explosion occurred, but far enough away, they were very afraid, pretty shocked, and wondered if they should come back right away. Elena’s parents are very worried, they think there might be other attacks and they’re begging her to leave Morocco immediately. So they might not come back to Tangier after all to take the plane as planned.

Small compensation: the message ended with kisses, I’m thinking of you. My heart leapt when I read those words.

That Sunday, I went to the terrace of a café on the Place de France; everyone was talking about the attack, thinking, no doubt, that there was a chance we might be blown up as well. I wondered if that man lying dead on the café terrace had felt anything, if he had understood what was happening before everything darkened in the detonation.