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‘Azel isn’t like that. He’s completely bewildered, ashamed of living off me, especially since his sister is here and she’s working.’

‘Once you’ve hit sixty, my dear, seduction becomes an iffy proposition.’

‘Oh, isn’t life grand!’

‘You said it, my dear. Just grand!’

20. Moha

MOHA, OLD MOHA, Moha the madman, Moha the wise man,* came down from his tree all bright-eyed and bushy-haired and rushed to Casabarata, to a café where clandestines and passeurs make their deals.

With time, ‘Bargain House,’ the slum of Casabarata, had become a poor man’s flea market that sold everything imaginable, from dilapidated old shoes to television sets. Made-in-China merchandise and counterfeits had gradually taken over. What interested Moha in Casabarata, however, was the men who sat drinking tea and smoking a few pipes of kif.

Moha picked up a newspaper lying on a table, asked the waiter in his deep voice for a cigarette lighter, stared at two men who had apparently smoked themselves into stupefaction, waved the newspaper in the air, and set it on fire.

I, too, am on fire. I burn like this paper that does not tell the truth, that says all is well, that the government is doing everything it can to give work to our young people, and that those who burn up the straits have succumbed to wild despair. And yes, there is good reason to have lost all hope, but life, it goes on and leaves us by the wayside (the wayside of what, go figure, I won’t tell you!), that’s just life, but which life — the one that crushes us, rips us to pieces? Here, gather up the ashes of the news I just burned: there’s lots of it, fake news, like this young woman who writes to the column ‘Heart to Heart,’ face to face, my face your face, to ask if she should let her husband kiss her on her labia minora. Another asks if our religion allows a woman to take her husband’s penis in her mouth … but what is this madness? It seems these letters don’t exist, that some fellow bursting with imagination writes them and sends them to the paper, so now this left-wing paper is making a fortune — it’s just crazy how much people want to know how others manage their sex lives! Okay, I haven’t come here to preach: if a woman wants to give herself to her husband, let her do so and not go trumpeting it in the papers. So it seems you want to take off, leave, quit the country, move in with the Europeans, but they’re not expecting you, or rather, they are: with dogs, German shepherds, handcuffs, a kick in the butt, and you think that there’s work over there, comfort, grace and beauty, but my poor friends, there is sadness, loneliness, all shades of grey — and money as well, but not for those who come without an invitation! Right, you know what I’m talking about: how many guys left and wound up drowned? How many left and got sent back? How many dissolved into thin air and we don’t even know if they still exist — their families haven’t had any news of them, but me, I know where they are: they’re here, in my djellaba hood, all piled on top of one another, lying low like thieves, waiting for the light in order to emerge, and that’s not a life. Hey you! The fat guy with the cap pulled down over his forehead and eyebrows! You think you’re so smart, you pocket the money and send them off to death but they’ll gobble you up one day, they’ll come find you in your bed to eat out your heart, liver, and balls, you’ll see, just ask what happened to Sif, yes, the one who took the name Sabre because he handled one as deftly as a revolver: the dead ripped out his throat, yes, hundreds of corpses came looking for him demanding that he settle accounts and when he drew his sabre it melted in the glassy glare of the dead and with his back to the wall he was sliced to ribbons by hands as sharp as butcher knives. Leaving, yes: I, too, would like to go away, so listen, I’m going to travel in the opposite direction, I’m going to burn up the desert, I’ll cross the Sahara like the wind, swiftly, invisibly, slipping among the dunes, leaving no trace, no scent — Moha will pass by there without anyone seeing him. But where are you going, Moha? I’m heading for Africa, land of our ancestors, vast Africa, where people have time to take a look at life even if life isn’t generous to them, where they still take a moment to do selfless things: Africa, cursed by the heavens, Africa pillaged by Blacks wearing ties, by Whites wearing ties, by monkeys in tuxedos, even by people who are sometimes completely invisible, but Africans know this, they don’t wait to be told what’s going on — I’m talking about Africa because its people have walked days and nights to get here, to Tangier, after hearing that Tangier was already Europe: you can smell Europe, you see Europe and its lights, you touch Europe with your fingertips, and it smells good, it awaits you, just cross eight or nine little miles and you’re even closer, or go to Ceuta and you’re as good as in Europe, yes, Ceuta and Melilla are European towns, where all you have to do is clamber over a barbed wire barrier — the Guardia Civil can’t keep an eye on everything, sometimes they shoot into the crowd, so dying in the frigid waters of the straits or on the asphalt of the border, take your pick, my friends, Africa is here and those guys think Europe has its border in Tangier, in the port, in the Socco Chico, here in this wretched café, and they arrive like quivering shadows, in a state of uncertainty, men drained of all substance, wandering the streets, sleeping in cemeteries, eating cats, yes, so rumour says, I believe it, some gratuitous nastiness, the Africans losing just a bit more of their souls, while we white Arabs (well, let’s say brown- or olive- or cinnamon-skinned), we feel superior, stupidly superior, thinking we’ve found in them men whom we can finally despise, with a racism that needed to get some exercise, although we were already mistreating the poor, but when the poor are Africans with black skin, we lose all control, we feel justified in looking down on them, we act like certain European politicians, looking down on you when in fact they don’t even see you… Aha, here’s the kingpin, the supercop who doesn’t arrest the passeurs, you wonder why he leaves them alone, well, that’s no mystery, but I’ll stop here, not another word, I’ll shut up, my lips are sealed, and if you hear words it’s because they’re coming out on their own, heading for the open sea, escaping, telling the truth — okay, give me a glass of water, little Malika needs me, she’s coughing, she’s sick, she caught pneumonia from shelling shrimp in the cold, we have to get her some medicines, her parents can’t afford them, I’m going to take up a collection, we have to save her, she’s a lovely girl who deserves to live, laugh, dance, climb to the mountaintops to talk to the stars…

Leaving! Leaving! Leaving any way at all, at any cost, drowning, floating on the water, belly bloated, face eaten away by the salt, eyes gone … Leaving! That’s all you’ve come up with for a solution. Look at the sea: she’s beautiful in her sparkling dress, with her subtle perfumes, but the sea swallows you down and then spits you out in tiny bits…

I’m off, Malika is waiting for me.

21. Azel

CARMEN WAS NOT PLEASED. Her Miguel was losing his head. This marriage with the sister of that parasite, as she called him, simply infuriated her. She could see that her dear employer was being manipulated, exploited, that he was going along with it and refusing to listen to reason. After seeking advice from Maria, an old gypsy fortuneteller and spellbinder, Carmen came home determined to put an end to this situation. She burned incense and placed cloves in specific places around the house. According to Maria, this setup would take a little time to work; all it took was patience and prayer.