Street of Thieves

“I don’t know. All I want is to be free to travel, to earn money, to walk around quietly with my girlfriend, to fuck if I want to, to pray if I want to, to sin if I want to, and to read detective novels if I feel like it without anyone finding anything to object to aside from God Himself. And that’s not going to change right away,” I said.

He looked at me gravely; I suddenly felt as if he were taking me seriously.

“Yes, that fight isn’t won yet.”

“All young people are like me,” I added. I suddenly felt emboldened. “The Islamists are old conservatives who steal our religion from us when it should belong to everyone. All they offer are prohibitions and repression. The Arab Left are old union members who are always too late for a strike. Who’s going to represent me?”

Jean-François suddenly seemed to be concentrating on something.

“You know, in France, I’m not sure they’re any better off on the political front. Plus, with the crisis. .”

He seemed to be thinking.

“Listen, for your travel plans, I might have an idea. I’m not promising anything, but I’m good friends with one of the directors at Comarit. They have lines for Spain, but also for France. At least you could see the country. I’d hate to lose you, but if you have your heart set on seeing the sights, here, outside of books, you’re not going to travel much.”

All Tangier natives knew about Comarit, a shipping company, because its name was written in big letters on the ferries entering the port from Tarifa or Algeciras. I didn’t quite see what I could do on a ferry, I had no knowledge of the sea, but this conversation gave me hope. Speaking frankly with Mr. Bourrelier had made me realize who I was: a young Moroccan of twenty from Tangier who wanted nothing but freedom. I wrote a long letter to Judit telling her this story and the possibilities that went with it, she replied almost immediately with Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! I felt my heart glowing.

THAT night I was again captive to my nightmares. I dreamed I was slapping Judit, very hard, I was beating her because she was jealous of Meryem; I was hitting her with all my strength, and she was shouting, she was screaming and struggling between blows, but she wasn’t running away — after a while I rejoined Meryem in her bedroom, began to caress her, undress her, I put my hand between her legs, it was warm, then I turned toward an old Sheikh who was there, next to the bed. That’s normal Lakhdar, he said, death warms corpses up after a certain amount of time, it’s like that, and I said it’s annoying, all this blood coming out from there, and he replied but it’s from you, this blood, and I looked at my penis, a red liquid was streaming from the urethra, continuously: the more excited I got from Meryem’s burning body, at the contact of her remains, made incandescent by being long dead, the more blood spurted out; I penetrated Meryem, my sex was consumed by hers; her eyes were still closed. Judit had replaced the Sheikh by the side of the bed: she said yes, yes, like that, that’s good, you see, you’re filling her, that’s good, look, and in fact the blood was coming out of Meryem’s motionless lips, overflowing from her nostrils onto her white teeth, I was terrified but I couldn’t stop, I moved in and out of her in a clinging warmth.

I woke up with my belly sticky from semen, my heart pounding.

I told myself I was crazy, that I had come down with some terrible mental illness; I curled up in the night like a dog, moaning with anguish.

II. BARZAKH

THE sole material trace of my childhood still left is two photos I’ve always kept in my wallet: one of Meryem when she was little, on vacation in a village, sitting against a tree, and another of my mother with my little sister Nour in her arms. Nothing else. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if, instead of always running farther away, instead of trying to escape the consequences of my actions, I had returned home, if I had insisted, if I had tried to impose myself on them at all costs, to repent, accept all the punishments, all the humiliations; I’ve often wondered if they would have ended up taking me back, if I could have found a place with them. Of course the question shouldn’t be asked, I have to accept my travels, which are another name for Fate.