Miguel hated the smell of cloves, which reminded him of going to the dentist. He asked Kenza if she was the one using this perfume, one favoured by the peasants of the Atlas Mountains. Dumbfounded, Kenza in turn searched for the source of the odour. She suspected Carmen, who’d been giving her nothing but nasty looks, but she kept her hunch to herself. As Miguel’s wife and mistress of the house, Kenza had the advantage, of course, but her first concern was to defuse the situation, so she preferred to do nothing. The house was turning into a theatre putting on a very bad play.
Kenza decided to go live in a room at the Red Cross and try to convince her brother to change his ways. Although she was still waiting for her residence and work permits, which would allow her at last to be completely comfortable in Spain, she knew that the real problem was Azel, whom she saw less and less frequently and over whom she had no control. It embarrassed her to speak to her brother about sex; Moroccan families simply didn’t talk about such things. She knew what was going on, but how could she put that into words? Before she’d even broached the subject, Azel flew into a screaming rage one day and denied everything.
‘Wait a minute, what do you take me for? I’m not a lousy whore, I’m not a beggar, and Miguel is a friend, a prophet sent by God to save a family, he’s a generous man, so why are you insinuating that this generosity is corrupted by self-interest? I mean, you don’t know a thing about my life, my real life, you pass judgement, you get upset, but do you even know if I’m happy, if I’m doing well, in good spirits, if I feel like blowing my brains out, disappearing, dropping off the face of the earth? Ask yourself all that and stop thinking I’m here only for unspeakable things! You’re suspicious of me but you’re more concerned about yourself and your reputation than you are about your own survival, and yes, I make an effort to live, to take pleasure in things, I’m neither a hero nor a monster, I’m a man tripped up by his own weaknesses, loving money, the easy life, but I see now that there’s a price to pay, and I won’t tell you what that is, still less how I’m paying it!
‘I could have followed the usual path, found a job after my studies, respectable work, something to bring me prestige, to reassure me and make me want to go far; I might have done wonderful things, an upright man still cherishing his fantasies yet grounded in reality, useful and efficient, but no: I was broken and I’m not the only one, do you understand? There are many of us young people with blocked, rotten futures, nothing on the horizon, getting up each morning to relive the day before, existing in repetition, in the sucking return of the same damn thing, and we’re supposed to keep our chins up, resist temptation, spurn a helping hand because it’s attached to something else that just happens to be shameful! Going every morning to the same café, seeing the same people, hearing the same commentary on what they saw on TV the night before, hearing two educated men argue over whether the engine of this Mercedes is more reliable than the one in that BMW, whether the price of property in Tangier will go up or down, whether the summer will be muggy, whether Spain will close its borders to los moros, drinking the same café au lait and smoking black-market American cigarettes, feeling that time is stagnating, dragging, lazing around, the hours taking unbelievable time to get through the air, and there you are, staring into space, saying whatever comes to mind, faking an interest, feeling like sending everything to kingdom come, kicking over the table, pouring your café au lait onto the white shirt of the know-it-all who never stops talking, so you play cards, dominoes, you forget time, time that’s burrowing into us like a leech, draining our energy, but we’ve got nowhere to use this energy that has us going around in circles, so we talk about women, those who exist and those we invent, we talk about their asses, their breasts, we let off steam, and we’re not proud of ourselves, no, I’m not proud. And on top of everything we have to behave ourselves, stay in line, keep up appearances, but my dear big sister, poverty won’t let you stay in line, it roots you to the spot, pins you down on a wobbly chair and you’re not allowed to stand up, to go see if the sky is more pleasant somewhere else, no, poverty is a curse and I’m not the only one it’s hurting: you’re its victim too, you deserve better than this fraud, this white marriage to get papers, to sweep away our hard times, our bitterness, yes, I’m not the only one, go see what’s happening in Mexico, that’s right, on the Mexican-American border — people sneaking across, it’s a risky business, leaving their land to go try their luck in the country where money is king… Everywhere people long to uproot themselves, to leave, as if there were an epidemic and they were fleeing a sickness, yes, poverty is a sickness, look at the African women who sell themselves for a trifle, the Moroccan men who smuggle like morons, and one day when they’re nabbed they say the Spaniards are racist, don’t like los moros, that’s it — when you run out of arguments there’s always racism, sure, we’re moros and we’re not nice, we’ve lost our dignity, oh, if you could see, my sister, what goes on in the slums of this city, in the backcountry of this land, you would not believe your eyes! If you saw how they treat las espaldas mojadas, ‘wetbacks,’ that’s what they call us, we who’ve managed to wriggle through the net, and they’re right, our shoulders are clearly soaking wet, we’ve just hauled ourselves out of the water and that saltwater doesn’t go away, doesn’t dry, it clings to our skin and clothes: las espaldas mojadas, that’s what we are, and before us — long before us — the Italians were called wops, the Spaniards dagos, the Jews yids or whatever, and us, that hasn’t changed, we’re los moros, the wetback Arabs, we lumber out of the sea like ghosts or monsters! And now I’m off!’
That night, Miguel called Kenza.
‘I’m worried. Azel can’t be found, his phone is dead; I’m afraid something’s happened to him.’
Kenza tried to reassure Miguel as best she could, but she knew it was useless, that her brother would not put up with the situation anymore. Kenza was truly worried; Azel was perfectly capable of entangling himself in dangerous schemes merely to prove that he was still his own man. She knew he’d been hanging out lately with some Moroccan riffraff who lived off petty trafficking. Even if he didn’t like their lifestyle, he often joined them, slipping into their company as if he needed to return for a moment to the wretched life he’d left behind. Among them was a certain Abbas — no papers, no known domicile, no job — who boasted of screwing everyone: the Guardia Civil, the security forces, the immigration authorities, the informers, the undercover cops, the Moroccan consulate, Socialist and non-Socialist Spain…
Kenza had been meaning to speak to Miguel about an offer from Carlos, one of his friends whom she’d met at his house; Carlos had invited her to come dance in his restaurant a few evenings every week, to earn a little money. After a pause, she brought up Carlos and his offer.
‘But that’s a fine idea, my dear, especially since it’s a very popular restaurant, not a nightclub. Do it, I’ll be in the first row, you dance divinely well.’
22. Abbas
ABBAS HAD AN ENDLESS SUPPLY of bones to pick with Spain. Short, swarthy, with lively eyes often bloodshot from everything he was on, he had arrived in this country as a teenager, hiding in a truck full of merchandise. He had almost smothered during the trip. He was rather proud of that, actually, but above all he harboured an unhealthy grudge against Spain, which had expelled him that first time, then arrested him and turned him over to the Moroccan authorities when he was caught trying to sneak into Spain again.