All of fourteen years old, Malika wasn’t going anywhere at the moment, in any case, but she did discover a ladder leading to a sky that was always blue. She would ascend it silently, without arousing her brother-in-law’s suspicions, to escape for a few moments to a little terrace where she could be alone and close her eyes. She would take off her scarf to let the wind caress her hair, allowing herself to be carried effortlessly away, as far as possible, without a word or a cry. She was happy, hovering over a sea of limpid blue.
Shelling more and more shrimp had turned her fingers completely transparent. Malika was afraid of losing them, afraid they would fall off like autumn leaves. She could bend them, but they hurt. When she went sailing with the wind, all her pain vanished. Often, in the air, she would encounter other children, each wrapped in a white cloth. They were going away somewhere, looking a little lost, but at peace. She had once been told that when children die, they become angels who go straight to paradise. Malika had just discovered that the way to paradise went past her terrace.
Climbing back down to her tiny room that first day, she felt a pang of doubt: the angels weren’t going to Spain, but heading in the opposite direction, towards the interior of Morocco.
She promised herself that next time she would verify the precise route the angels were taking.
She spent that entire night coughing, shaking from the cold. It wasn’t the first time she had fallen ill. All the ‘shrimp girls’ went through this. Her frail body and delicate health were hard pressed, and to resist, to forget, she thought of the ladder and the pure blue of the sky. That night, she saw herself in turn enveloped in a white cloth and floating on water. Frightened, she awoke in tears. Her sister held her in her arms and gave her an aspirin.
13. Soumaya
AZEL RESOLVED TO GO to the brothel at least once a week. This was an important decision for him. He slept with Miguel, but found his own pleasure with women. Given that Siham was hardly ever free, Azel felt he absolutely had to keep up his virility with the North African Arab girls he met at the Café Casbah, a bistro that smelled of cigarettes and cheap wine. Frequented mainly by Moroccans, it was a place where girls in trouble could find refuge. The owner, a former shepherd from Nador, was called El Caudillo because he looked like Franco. He had married a Spanish woman and never again set foot in Morocco. He claimed not to miss his homeland; his childhood had been a hard and unhappy one, and he’d spent his entire youth in small-time smuggling between the Rif and the Atlas Mountains. Anyway, he concluded, he’d had no luck with ‘made-in-Morocco happiness.’
Whenever he was asked to describe his country, he would launch into some general observations sprinkled with a few home truths: in Morocco, you have to do as everyone else does: cut the throat of the sheep with your own hands on Aïd el-Kebir; marry a virgin; spend hours in a café backbiting people (or at best comparing the prices of the latest German automobiles); talk about TV programmes; drink no alcohol from three days before Ramadan to three days after it; spit on the ground; try to push in front of other people; announce your opinion about everything; say ‘yes’ when you think ‘no’; remember to punctuate your sentences with makayene mouchkil (‘no problem’); and come home after having a few beers with friends to park yourself at the dinner table and stuff yourself like a pig. To round out the day, this pig will wait in bed for his wife to finish cleaning up so that he can give her a poke, but if she lingers a bit in the kitchen, he’ll wind up asleep and snoring.
Azel liked El Caudillo, especially since the man never asked him any questions about his life, his past, or where he came from. It was at El Caudillo’s place that Azel met Soumaya, a girl from Oujda who had come to Spain with a husband who’d decamped and left her destitute — a story she told at the drop of a hat but which everyone suspected was somewhat embroidered in certain respects. The truth was less romantic. A Kuwaiti lover had promised her the sun and the stars, marriage and the good life. They had left together for Spain, where they had taken a room in a hotel. One evening, however, without telling Soumaya, the Kuwaiti had paid the hotel bill for another month, left her a tidy sum of money, and taken off to rejoin his little family in Kuwait. Of course she soon found herself completely broke. Instead of returning to Morocco, she let herself drift into debauchery and the easy life. That was how she’d landed in the Casbah one evening when she’d had no idea where to go anymore. El Caudillo’s wife had taken her in, offering her a job in the kitchen.
The first time Azel saw her, he knew she would become his mistress. Her way of looking at men was a real plea for love. Since she’d begun working for El Caudillo, she hadn’t been doing too badly. The Moroccan dishes she prepared were quite popular. She lived in a small room on the top floor of an old apartment building not too far from the Café Casbah. From time to time, though, she cried over her fate. She missed her country so much, but before she could go home, she had to earn a little money. Whenever she called her family, she would tell them about Salim, her Kuwaiti husband off on a business trip, and say she’d soon be coming to visit them.
One evening when she was homesick, Azel took her in his arms and consoled her, singing a popular ditty that brought tears of laughter to her eyes. Shyly, she confided in him.
‘I would never have believed that one day I would be slaving in a bistro kitchen. If my parents ever saw me, they would lose their minds. My father is an important official in the administrative district of Tangier, and my mother teaches Arabic in a private school. They spoiled their daughter — that’s where I get my curves… Men have no objection to a full figure. Salim, he just adored me, he would kneel at my feet and say, ‘Your wish is my command!’ He loved me, but he had his responsibilities, and men from that part of the world are not free, I’d been warned about that. They come to Morocco, buy themselves a good time, then take off again after making a heap of promises. Even so, I do have a friend, Wafa, who managed to marry a Saudi. She lives over there; I don’t know if she’s happy, but she certainly doesn’t work in the kitchen of a Spanish bar. She hasn’t ever been back to Morocco either, and her parents haven’t been able to get a visa to visit her. Maybe she’s dead, or just kept captive in one of those palaces where the doors are closely guarded…’
‘How kindhearted you are!’ exclaimed Azel. ‘What I mean is, you’re so full of goodness!’
‘And I’m good in bed, too! You know, it’s so rare to be able to speak freely with a Moroccan. With you, though, I feel at ease. Tell me, why is it so frowned on to love men? People often reproach me for showing that I love them. But I’m someone who can’t hide her feelings — when I see a man I like, I let him know it. What’s wrong with that?’
Making love in a small bed required the skills of an acrobat. Soumaya and Azel ended up falling onto the floor, laughing at the complicated positions they had to take. They liked each other and said so. Soumaya wore a strong perfume to cover the kitchen smells that clung to her no matter how many showers she took, but eau de toilette, perfume — nothing helped. Azel didn’t have the heart to tell her.