In the end, the party was a sad event. I could feel the tension among the guests. I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. In Sweden, I had cut way down, but here my nerves were frayed.
In the afternoon, the two of us sat on the terrace of the Cafe Hafa. Old memories came back to us, as if we were watching a film. We relived the images, the sounds, the smells of the past. The evening mist obscured the Spanish coast in the distance. I coughed quite a bit, even though I had my cough drops. I was tired, but couldn't tell if it was physical fatigue or moral torpor. I observed Ali, and read the same lassitude on his face. For the first time, I wanted him to go away. I didn't feel well. I couldn't stand myself, and I couldn't stand him. I wanted something intangible. Perhaps I wanted the sort of serenity Ali always seemed to have.
It was during this trip that I decided to buy an apartment on the fourth floor of Ali's building. I knew it belonged to Soraya s parents. I took my wife to see it, and she liked it. The apartment had a good view of the port and the ocean beyond. In front of Ghita, I asked Ali to deal with everything: to negotiate the price, and to supervise the renovations. He hesitated for a moment. "I won't do anything without Ghita's permission," he said. "Of course she'll want to be in charge of decorating her own house. I won't do anything without running it past her. We'll see about the price before you leave."
Once we bought the apartment, I authorized Ali to proceed with all the necessary work. Our arrangement was clear. Soon he was bombarding me with faxes of estimates and bills, sending fabric swatches in the mail. You would have thought it was his own apartment. His enthusiasm annoyed me.
That winter, the first symptoms of my illness appeared. They couldn't hide the truth from me. I understood the prognosis, and I knew better than most what was going on in my lungs. Dr. Lovgren, who had become a friend, told me that he believed in telling his patients the truth. "You've seen the X-rays. We're lucky to have caught it early. You should start chemotheraphy this week. You're young. But then, lung cancer seems to favor the young. Talk to your wife about it. We won't tell anyone here. You'll have the best treatment available. Don't panic. I can see the shock in your eyes. That's always the way it is. It's good to be well-informed; but when we doctors hear this kind of news, we're as stunned as any patient. I think we can beat it. I have a good feeling about this. I know that's not very scientific, but even among scientists, intuition and the irrational are important. You can continue to work as usual; just slow down a litde. Whatever you do, don't give in. Be positive, fight back. You know a positive outlook can make a difference. You know all this, but I'm telling you as a friend."
13
I remembered the story of the avalanche that surprises you, then engulfs you. I remembered what my mother told me: beams fell on my back, and I was stuck in the ruins. I felt crushed, powerless in the face of the facts, the fatal blow. I should have prepared myself better for the inevitable. Lately, I smoked without pleasure, but I clung to the habit. My lungs needed the nicotine, the tar, the deposits of poison eating away at my bronchial tubes and suffocating me. I had been warned, but I always thought I would escape this fate.
I looked around, focusing on random objects. They were there, solid and eternal. I went out to the square near our house, and watched the passersby walking with a certain, determined step. Where were they going? How did they feel? There had to be at least one person my age dealing with the same anguish! I saw only people in obvious good health. Their bodies bore no pain. Even the old woman who had so much trouble walking was not sick. I was sure I was the only sick person in the entire city of Stockholm. Illness imposes an intense feeling of solitude. Ultimately, we are alone.
I needed to talk, to confide in someone. Above all, I knew I couldn't tell Ali. He would drop everything and come to take care of me. I would read the progression of the illness in his eyes. His face would become a mirror; I couldn't bear the thought. We knew each other too well to risk this. Ali was not a good actor, and he was incapable of lying or hiding his feelings. No, I couldn't tell him. My wife was already depressed. I would tell her after I began treatments. I walked into a bar. It was noon, time for the open-faced sandwiches and salads they eat in Sweden.
A man was sitting alone at the bar with a large glass of beer. I singled him out because he was around my age. He had to be between forty and forty-five. I spoke to him in the casual, superficial way people do in Sweden. He raised his glass. I ordered a glass of white wine. He was an engineer from Gothenburg whose work had brought him to Stockholm. He was exactly my age: forty-five. He was in good health. I told him I had just learned I had lung cancer. He raised his glass again, and patted me on the shoulder. He said nothing, but his eyes were full of sympathy.
I left the bar staggering, walking like an old man. I felt an intense desire to be near my mother, to go to her grave and talk to her. I had tears in my eyes. I coughed and it hurt. I was tired, troubled, with no desire for anything. I thought of all the food I liked, which I denied myself, for fear of getting fat: vanilla pastries, Moroccan cookies, glazed chestnuts, wholewheat bread covered with butter, fresh goat's cheese, grilled almonds, Arab dates filled with almonds, Turkish figs, fig jam, lemon tarts, foie gras, preserved duck-all fatal to the liver…
I felt nauseated. Nothing interested me anymore. I needed time to prepare myself for this blow and to find a way of dealing with it, this cruel assault that had been coming for a long time. Curiously, what I wanted was a cigarette, but I didn't have one on me. I thought about stopping someone on the street. No, that was it for cigarettes.
14
Without taking sleeping pills or tranquilizers, I slept soundly, not even getting up to urinate. I must have been either overwhelmed or relieved. I did not dream. My wife was surprised. She said I must be tired, that I must be getting sick, a bad flu or something, and I should consult our friend Dr. Lovgren. I could have chosen that moment to tell her the bad news, but I didn't dare. She was happy that morning; she was going off to her yoga class, and I didn't want to upset her.
I went to my office in the hospital, where we were evaluating a disastrous situation in Bangladesh. A strange parasite was attacking people's lungs. I was among those designated to investigate. I was eager to go, thinking it would distract me from my own problems, but Dr. Lovgren decided otherwise. His pretext was that he needed me in Sweden to help him analyze the data the other doctors in the team would be sending back. I realized then that my case was hopeless. When the two of us were alone, I asked him point-blank: "How long do I have?" He said he wouldn't know anything until the end of the first chemotherapy treatment.
At the hospital where I was being treated, I met another Moroccan, as sick as I was. His name was Barnouss. He had removed the final "i" from his name to appear more Nordic, but with his mop of black hair and dark complexion, it would have been obvious to anyone that he was Maghrebin. He was less worried than I was, and talked to me as if we were old friends. "Here, my compatriot, I have confidence. It's important to have confidence in a country and its health system. That way, you're halfway to being cured. In Morocco, I have no confidence in the medical system. I'm sick even before I get sick. I mean, even the thought of finding myself in the hospital in Avicenne… bacteria aren't stupid. They don't want to be treated in a Moroccan hospital. They waited until I was in Sweden to show up. Here in Stockholm I can see a doctor, any doctor, with complete confidence. You know, when I'm on vacation down there, I avoid even aspirin. The medicines there always contain less than the prescribed dosage. Watch out for anything written in Arabic. Do you think that if it says a thousand units of penicillin there really are a thousand? They put in three or four hundred and write one thousand. I have proof. At the beginning I took Moroccan drugs. There was no effect, nothing. They don't work. They are crap, you understand? Such a beautiful country, and such shitty medicine! In this magnificent country, you find real Muslims. I mean Swedes who are really Protestant or Catholic, but they treat us as if they were Muslims. They are kind and generous, with a sense of solidarity. This country deserves to be Muslim. No, I don't mean fundamentalist. That's not Islam. That's political crap. In fact, the poor Swedes are afraid that Muslim fanatics will come here and ruin their nice peaceful country, and I can understand that. Tell me, how do you feel? Here, I guarantee you, you'll get better. In this country, they don't make a distinction between rich and poor, between Swedes and immigrants; everyone is treated the same, and I admire that. I say this because some of our fellow Moroccans are never satisfied, they complain, make a lot of noise, drink, and behave badly. They don't respect this country, and that's not good!"