Street of Thieves

I was not Ibn Battuta: I was not about to meet important ulemas, or listen to sermons in mosques, even if that wouldn’t have displeased me, but I would have had to be alone there: In Tunisia, as in Morocco, mosques are forbidden to non-Muslims. Since Judit found this measure rather discriminatory — she assured me that was not at all the case in Cairo or Damascus — I searched for the cause, and it was the French, more precisely the first Resident-General in Morocco, Lyautey, who established this law, which then extended to all Maghreb under French rule, to ensure respect among the different religious communities. I don’t know if it’s good or bad; it seemed strange to me that groups of tourists could freely enter the mosque of the Umayyad or of Al-Azhar and not the ones in Kairouan or Zitouna, not to mention Judit who, while not a Muslim, knew many passages from the Koran by heart and was entirely respectful of the religion. Out of solidarity, then, I didn’t go into the famous courtyard with ancient columns or the prayer hall of the most famous mosque in the Maghreb, but no matter. I was only there to be with her, and the week passed quickly; I found that our connection grew stronger every day, closer, so much so that soon it would be very hard to part ways. We spoke a language that belonged only to us, a mixture of literary Arabic, Moroccan dialect, and French; Judit was making huge progress in Arabic daily. And in fact, when I had to leave Tunis, after seven days of dead soldiers, of Casanova — Judit watched me work, over my shoulder, laughing at my poilus and finding the Venetian’s language rather hard to understand — of poor-man’s pool sessions on the patio, of strolls to the Goulette, to Carthage and to La Marsa, the closer the time for departure came, the more depressed I felt about going back to Tangier, all the more so since this time we had no prospect, no plan of getting back together again anytime soon. Judit promised me she would return in the fall, but she didn’t know when or how, no doubt she wouldn’t have the money.

And then we had to bring ourselves to say good-bye.

“It’s my turn to visit,” I said, taking her in my arms in the Tunis airport.

“That would be good. .”

“I’ll find a way to get to Barcelona. Allah karim.”

“Sahih. I’ll wait for you, then.”

“Inshallah.”

“Inshallah.”

And I left, my heart in my shoes.

COMING back was very hard, I had to work twice as hard because I hadn’t managed to keep up my crazy pace from before; I had run out of money; I was fed up with my co-renters, their stupidity was exhausting; I was counting on Ramadan to boost my morale, but fasting, in the heat and the long summer days, was tough and, beyond everything else, I found it hard, in solitude, to rediscover the festive and spiritual side that should have made the hunger and thirst bearable; I kept thinking about the previous Ramadan, with Bassam, Sheikh Nureddin, and the companions of the Koranic Thought, our iftar in the little neighborhood restaurant, the readings from the Koran till late at night, and the taste of childhood, the familiar and familial taste that the month of fasting had and that did come back to me now, but only to plunge me into sudden melancholy. Alone, the iftar was just a moment of sadness, and even if we made an effort, my terrible companions and I, to be together, the freeze-dried soups, the cans of sardines, or the noodles (not to mention their remarks) added to the sadness. Then I delved alone into my Koran and my Ibn Kathir, but without managing to concentrate, the names of the poilus and Casanova’s memoirs kept dancing in front of my eyes — even when I tried to break the fast in a restaurant and go to the mosque to listen to the readings, it was in vain, I took nothing from it.