The first evening was a celebration. Azel talked and talked about himself, saying whatever popped into his head, exaggerating, lying, even though he wasn’t fooling anyone. Before they went off to bed, Kenza pulled him aside.
‘I can’t take any more of this country. Ever since you left, it’s gotten worse, there’s no way out, none. Luckily Monsieur Miguel thinks of us from time to time; you’re the one who sends us money, right? — but he’s the one who signs the money order.’
Azel hesitated for a moment; he’d known nothing about that.
‘Whether it’s his money or mine, it’s the same thing. But it’s still very hard to ask him for what you want.’
‘But you’re the only one who can do it! I don’t know him well enough to say to him, straight out like that, will you agree to a fake marriage with me?’
‘I know I’m the only one, but I’m afraid we’re pushing our luck, going too often to the well.’
‘Miguel is not a well!’
‘Of course not, but we can’t go too far — after all, he’s a man with principles.’
‘Then I’ll let our mother take care of it.’
‘No, absolutely not, she’ll spoil everything! And she’d risk losing the trip to Mecca he’s thinking about offering her.’
It was on an evening when they were dining alone together, in a charming little house in the nearby coastal town of Asilah, that Azel broached the subject with Miguel.
Miguel was neither surprised nor offended. He was quite familiar with that kind of subterfuge and preferred to follow the lead of his feelings, wherever they took him. He loved Azel and thus could refuse him nothing. His only fear was of being betrayed, double-crossed, stabbed in the back. He could talk endlessly about the methods and ravages of treachery. Miguel had read the works of Jean Genet and wondered why he loved to say that Tangier was the city of perfidy. Miguel knew there was something in Azel’s eyes that was difficult to put into words, a kind of pseudo-smile, an implicit way of revealing an inadmissible form of deception. But Miguel was also perfectly aware of his young lover’s weaknesses: money, women, and kif. By accepting this marriage with Kenza, he hoped to create a stability at home that would make Azel more manageable, more trustworthy.
‘But a non-Muslim man is not allowed to wed a Muslim woman!’ he pointed out to Azel.
‘Then now’s the time to convert to Islam! Married, you’d have an even greater chance of success with your adoption plan. Two birds with one stone!’
‘How does one convert?’
‘You go see two adouls, men of religion and the law, and you pronounce the shahada, the profession of faith: I affirm that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is His prophet.’
‘That’s it?’
‘You’ll also have to change your name and …’
‘And what?’
‘Get your dick circumcised!’
‘No, I’m too old for that, and anyway they’re not going to check up on me.’
‘When you go see the adouls, you have to make an effort to dress normally: no caftan! They’d be shocked, and might turn against you. No coral necklace, either, or too many rings. These are conventional people, there’s no sense in drawing attention to yourself.’
‘I know Morocco as well as you do and I am aware that it’s always better to be discreet. And here’s a piece of advice for you: appearances can be deceiving!’
‘Yes, I know: all that glitters is not gold. Senna kadhhak we el kalb kay thanne …’
‘Meaning?’
‘A smile on the lips and murder in the heart! I just thought that up. I like to quote proverbs now and then. When I can’t remember one, well, I make one up myself.’
And that is how, for love of Azel, Miguel married Kenza and changed his name to Mounir.
15. Malika
EVER SINCE MALIKA had seen the pictures of floating bodies on television, she had stopped dreaming. She had counted the corpses, imagining herself as a victim of that tragedy. She would lie on her back, puff up her tummy, and float with her eyes closed. The morning mist caressed her face; chilly water rippled over her small body. She felt nothing. She was playing at death, letting herself be carried away by the waves, bumping into other bodies, then heading back out to sea. A huge wave tumbled her all the way onto the sandy shore. Seaweed wrapped her in its tangles. The water kept washing over her, rocking her as if she were setting out on a long sleep. But it was dawn, the hour for prayer; her grandmother was making her ablutions and paying no attention to her. Malika neither saw nor heard her. They were not in the same room, perhaps not even in the same country. Malika would have liked to speak to her, call her, but no sound left her throat. So she began to pray as well, but without moving, and without making her ablutions. She spoke to the sky, to the sea, to the gulls, remembering what her father had told her one day about these birds that drown if they lose the oil on their feathers. She’d tried to wash a gull with soap, and when she had let it go, the poor thing had slipped under the surface and never come up. Malika had cried; she’d thought her father had invented that story because he had so much imagination. Now, whenever she saw a seagull, she remembered the one that had died from her mistake. She had even given it a name, Zbida, which means ‘butter cookie.’
Malika’s sleep became light, hovering over depths of sadness. She no longer dreamed of crossing the straits but had not given up on changing her life. Her sister protected her, but her brother-in-law ordered her about, even though he claimed that she was like a daughter to him. Since he had a hard time making ends meet, he was often in a bad mood. Anyway, he was a fisherman, and would always have a hard time of it. And his wife selling bread at the entrance to the Grand Socco wasn’t going to change that. She had teamed up with an elderly aunt who baked the bread, which she herself could go sell every day only because Malika stayed home to take care of the children.
As soon as her sister returned from the market, Malika would run outside to enjoy her daily hour of freedom, dashing through the streets to the boulevard Pasteur, down to the Terrasse des Paresseux. She would buy a packet of roasted sunflower seeds and sit down to nibble them while watching boats leave the harbour. If she was propositioned by men who took her for a prostitute, she never replied, just spat seeds at them until they went away.
She now gazed at the boats with a changed eye, watching them glide away over the calm water like giant bottles in which she was content simply to send off her dreams. She wrote them down on large sheets of paper, folded them in four, then eight, then numbered them and tucked them away in a notebook.
Dream number one is blue. There is the sea, and at the far end is an armchair suspended between heaven and earth. Malika nestles into it, and sets it swinging. Her dress is blue as well, loose-fitting and sheer. High up in her swing she can glimpse the Moroccan coast, Tangier, the cliffs, the Mountain, the harbour. In the evening, the lights do not glitter there. All is dark. So she twists the swing sideways and turns her back on Morocco.
Dream number two is white. She’s in a school where everyone, teachers and students alike, is wearing white. The blackboard is white and the chalk, black. The pupils learn about the stars — their movements, their travels — and then go down to earth. There, they enter a forest where the trees have been painted with whitewash. This whiteness enchants Malika. She stops, climbs a tree, and sees in the distance the terrace of her sister’s house. It’s a tiny terrace where sheepskins are set out to dry. From the tree branches hang books by the hundreds, covered with jackets of every colour. To learn what each book says, one need simply open it. They are magic books that do not exist in Tangier. Malika decides to go to the land where this forest of books grows.