“‘Hamou…,’ I say to him.”
“His name was Hamou?”
Ali ignores the senseless interruption.
“‘Hamou, I say to him, I’m looking for men who matter in this town!’ He nods, pours himself a cup of tea, sips the boiling beverage, brow furrowed, eyes half-closed, lost in thoughts as deep as ‘the lake’ of little Lamartine (do you remember, from high school?), thoughts so deep that one might worry he’d never return, lost in the world of Ideas (you remember, philosophy class?). Then he shakes himself…”
“What does that mean, ‘he shakes himself’?”
“…he shakes himself like a horse and hits the palm of his hand on the table, with a male and resolute air. ‘Ali,’ he says to me, ‘I know them all!’”
Sensation around the table.
“Happy times when one can know all the men who matter in Khouribga!”
“Today, the population has exploded in every direction. We’re even in Italy!”
“We don’t know our neighbor, monsieur!”
“We don’t even know where we live!”
We finally kept quiet and regarded, eyes filled with emotion, our friend who was recounting this incredible adventure in such detail. During the explosion of commentary that interrupted his narration he was chomping at the bit, metaphorically speaking, all while caressing a cat; this cat submitted his derrière to him, as is the habit of cats, all while purring peacefully. The silence that had just fallen over Café de l’Univers invited Ali to resume his story.
“So Hamou tells me about many of these men who matter; he even has the courtesy to present them classified by category — my cousin is methodical, like all the Soussis. I note in petto what he reveals to me, thank him, take care of the bill (a languid tea, an insoluble coffee) and plunk myself on the sidewalk. Did I mention it was hot out? It was as if we were, as the poet said, ‘under the torrents of a tropical sun.’”
“Which poet?”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s just an expression. The tropical sun, ‘which spreads heat over our fallow lands.’ What is to be done? as old Vladimir said. Let’s begin with the entrepreneurs, I say to myself, mentally consulting my list, maybe there’s a lunch to be had from it. I begin my rounds with Tijani, a prominent businessman, owner of a second-hand Bentley bought from an old crazy Tangéroise woman. I bribe the chaouch who keeps guard at the entrance of the building. He opportunely turns his gaze toward the road, shimmering with dust, while I climb a steep staircase; then I’m parleying with a panicked secretary in a sort of antechamber — I swear, it was as if she had never seen a journalist before, that young bird, much less a freelance journalist — one might even say she had never before seen a man, so much did she gawk, mouth agape — I try to dazzle her by presenting my fake press pass but does she even know how to read? Well, when she finally understands that I don’t want her virginity, or her wallet, she goes to scratch at a door, pokes her head in, chirps…Long story short, Tijani receives me in a brand spanking new office, minimalist, in tones of gray anthracite, with a green plant in a corner that seems to keep watch. Tijani went to high school in Casablanca, some engineering school in France, then did his MBA at an American university — without tiring himself out, I might add — I would learn later that he’s hypermnesic and a total idiot. He returned to the country, one wonders why, perhaps to make his mother happy, or else he did something stupid in the US (we’ll save the slander for another time), so he returned to the country and created his company here, christened Tijani and Co., which incidentally is a bit boastful since he’s alone in his office, with the green plant and the secretary in distress: Mr. Co. is conspicuously absent. Whatever it may be, I congratulate Tijani on his success. Bravo! He shows me, quite proud, the plans, graphs, and diagrams, the hyperboles and even a parabola — then proposes that I, for the sake of my article, meet his FD, his HRD, or even his XYZ (all gentlemen who I suspect only exist in his head, for I didn’t see anyone in the hallways of Tijani and Co., except for, useless to repeat it, his trying secretary and his plant, haughty as a hidalgo). I suspect he is a mythomaniac, a high-flying crook, but it’s too hot to clarify matters; and in the end, hey, as long as he doesn’t eat my cookie or bother my wife what does it matter to me whether Tijani is a businessman or a scrounger? I have just enough time to ask him a question: ‘Dis-moi, Tijani…”’
“You addressed him with the informal tu?”
“At the time, everyone tutoyer-ed each other.”
“Who’s ‘everyone’?”
“Everyone who knew how to read and write. And who spoke Moroccan.”
“You’re taking the piss out of us, etc.”
Five minutes later:
“So I ask him: ‘Tell me, Tijani, how do you follow the cycles of demand, the needs of the consumers, the projections, all that?’ His eyes widen. ‘Or maybe it’s your FD who takes care of it? Or perhaps your XYZ?’ His eyes widen. ‘Unless there’s a secret journal here that monitors the market?’ His eyes widen. ‘But I go see Bouazza, of course!’ he cries. ‘For God’s sake!’ He can’t disclose any more, he has to slip out for an important business lunch — to which he forgets to invite me, the pig. Here I am on the sidewalk, the sun dripping from the heights of the blue sky. Qué calor! as the Colombians say. As if we were in a hammam at rush hour. I wipe my forehead with the sleeve of my shirt. My next rendezvous is with the governor, Si Ahmed, one of those brilliant technocrats recently nominated by the king to the head of important cities. I go by foot to the prefecture. It’s at the end of the avenue. The chaouch who stands guard before the imposing building starts chasing me like I’m some kind of scumbag, at least he’s about to, pitchfork raised, murderous eye, when he understands that I purport, me, a simple citizen, to go see the governor; stop there! I brandish my fake press pass, decorated with the colors of the national flag, threatening, and pass myself off as a special correspondent of Basri — might as well really go for it. Do you remember Driss Basri, who was minister of the interior at the time? Yeesh…The sole utterance of his name made men piss themselves; the sight of his face, from a distance, made women faint from fear; and the chaouch fell like flies when his emissaries presented themselves at the drawbridge.”
We interrupt Ali.
“We were all alive then. Today’s youth don’t want to believe us. They downplay it, the little bastards: come on, they say, he wasn’t so terrible, your Basri.”
“Our Basri? The dogs!”
Ali was starting to get irritated.
“May I continue?”
“Go on, go on.”
“So the chaouch, before perishing from terror, opens the front door for me and from one moment to the next I find myself in the office of Si Ahmed. His Excellency, who doesn’t hate being talked about, receives the hack journalist, the freelancer — but what did he know of it? — with kindness. He is welcoming, certainly, even courteous; but he is also a voluble visionary who deploys, to my stupefaction, relief maps, perhaps of Vauban, on a big meeting table. His hands flutter about: he points out this, shows me that, underlines, designates, regenerates, erases, constructs. He’s the demiurge, I swear! Next he shows me the aerial photos taken by drones belonging to the US Air Force, which maybe didn’t even exist at the time; he speaks to me of phantastic, phantasmic projects, perhaps even pharaonic, in any case there’s a ph somewhere in there. He gets heated, he sweats, he evaporates, more and more eloquent. Globalization is a game for him, his benchmark is millions of dollars, he’s met Bill Gates and slapped a Chinese man. All the same I end up interrupting: ‘Si Ahmed, this is all great, mais comment faites-vous…’”