Azel’s dearest wish was to wipe out all memory of his departure from Morocco, and to return home like a hero. Was he not personally helping to combat the terrorism that was threatening Europe? Now he dreamed of appearing on television, introduced as the good Muslim responsible for thwarting a dangerous plot. All this had pushed Azel’s sexual problems to the sidelines; he no longer fretted over his penis, looked at women, or had erotic dreams. He had become another man: courageous, subtle, and strong. He moved with clear agility and ease between the antiterrorist police and the radical Islamist movements dedicated to sending the West up in flames. He knew, however, that this equilibrium could not last forever. From one day to the next he feared some fresh collapse provoked by his chaotic life in Madrid. As a front, the police had found him a part-time job in the legal department of a large bank; no one was supposed to know what he did with the rest of his time. At long last, Azel felt useful and respected. He dressed elegantly, drank abstemiously, but could not manage to give up kif, which he often abused to the point of making himself ill. Only a mixture of aspirin, paracetamol, and codeine could relieve his violent headaches.
When several days passed without any sign of life from Azel, his police contact became annoyed and decided to visit him. The concierge claimed to have seen Azel the previous day with two men, ‘Moros,’ she added. The policeman rang and rang Azel’s bell, but no one came to the door. He called for reinforcements to break it down.
Azel was on the floor, his throat cut, his head in a pool of blood. The Brothers had slaughtered him like a lamb sacrificed for Aïd el-Kebir.
39. Kenza
WAITING. Kenza had spent her life waiting. She had explored all the mysteries of boredom, because to wait is to dive into a sea of ennui. It’s like growing old, in other words — watching the future shut down, fade away, lose all promise. If she could have at least known what she was waiting for… Although Kenza had always managed to get through her life without too much fuss, her mother never stopped saying things like:
‘Tell me, how do others manage to do so well, finding a husband of good family, with fine financial prospects, a handsome, respectable man? Look at you: you are beautiful in every way, your studies enable you to work in a clinic, you’re from an honest and upright family — not rich, but not poor, either, so, tell me, what are you waiting for to meet a man? I’m waiting for you — every day I pray God that you meet someone, I pray and ask God to consider my condition, my age, and my hopes…’
Kenza had had enough of such admonitions. She was simply unlucky. She lacked the savoir-faire of her married girlfriends who preferred not to notice that their husbands were merrily cheating on them. At least they had a home.
Before leaving Morocco, Kenza had even dared take part one day in a programme about marriage on Radio Tangier. The moderator had gathered together four unmarried women between twenty-five and thirty-five years old, whom she introduced with the remark that after the age of twenty-five, it was time to get seriously worried. Kenza had just turned thirty and had lost her virginity years before. She wanted to defend the idea that a woman could be single and happy, free and honest, loved and respected. She was waiting not for a husband, but for love. She had an exalted idea of love, of the relationship between the sexes, especially in a beautiful country like her own, and although she knew that she was cherishing some illusions, she persisted in her ambition: to find love — true love, real and sincere, overwhelming love, and for once, just once, to experience those sublime moments described so tellingly in the films and novels she had adored. She remembered in particular The Alexandria Quartet, which her philosophy professor had given her; Gone with the Wind and The Lady of the Camellias had deeply moved her as well. It was through such works that she had formed a precise idea of what would make her deliriously happy. And it was also how she had realized that she would not find such a love in Morocco, not because Moroccan men were incapable of such emotion, but because daily life and public opinion would always stifle true love in the end.