15
Before he left Tangier, Mamed went to see my parents. He examined my father, who was having trouble breathing, and prescribed some medicine, wondering out loud whether it would be available in Moroccan pharmacies. If not, he offered to send it from Sweden. My mother gave him a box of little cakes she had just made, insisting: "They're good, especially in the winter. Take them with you. I hope you like almond. And look, take these two rolls, fresh from the oven. Homemade bread is good. I'm sure your mother used to pack food for you. I've always done that for my children. It's important to eat well. Come back and see us. If you need anything, remember you have a home here, too. Come here, my son, so I can embrace you and give you my blessing." Mamed's eyes filled with tears. He hugged my mother and promised to return.
We received a package from Mamed with the medicine for my father, a pretty cashmere shawl for my mother, and a pen for me. Soon after, Mamed's second child was born. He called him Yanis, telling me over the phone that it was like Anis, Arabic for companion, but it was also the Greek name for John. "He's a little Swede who will make his life here. It's different for me. I'm too old to start over, so I go through the daily motions, do my job well. I no longer try to bridge the cultural gap between Sweden and Morocco. I'm tired. I'm still thinking about whether or not to have Yanis circumcised. It's supposed to be better in terms of hygiene. Now don't get any ideas from those old Fez families who kidnap little boys and have them circumcised without their parents' knowledge. I'm only telling you this because I know you could do it. By the way, say hello to Ramon for me."
I finally convinced Soraya to adopt a child. We went through the usual procedures, legal and illegal. It took six months, and then, one day, my Rif Mountain friend Azulito (his nickname came from his blue eyes) brought me a birth certificate and another legal document confirming the adoption of our son, Nabil. We had to lie, telling everyone that Soraya had had a difficult pregnancy, and that she'd been confined to bed rest for the last six months. We didn't tell anyone he was adopted. That was the price we had to pay for Soraya to reclaim her zest for life, her inner peace, her easy disposition. I told Mamed the truth. He sent Soraya a magnificent bouquet of flowers.
The next summer, Mamed came to see us with gifts for Nabil. He had changed a great deal physically and coughed all the time, claiming it was air pollution. He had good cough drops, he said, but he had left them at home.
Once again, we fell right back into our old summer routine-meeting at the Cafe de Paris in the morning and Cafe Hafa in the afternoon. We talked and joked about everything. But one evening, while we watched the sun set on the Spanish coast, he suddenly became serious. "I think I've made a mistake," he said. "I never should have left Morocco for Sweden. I'm lost. I've seen how you can live differently, and in many ways better than here, but it's not my culture, not my traditions. My wife and children have adapted better than I have. I'm depressed there, unhappy here, dissatisfied everywhere. The whole thing has been a failure. I'm not well. My children don't speak a word of Arabic, even though they're supposed to have learned it at school. They think of Morocco as a vacation place.
I don't want to grow old in Sweden. I think I'm going to come back. They need lung specialists here. What I would really like to do is retire early and come home. I doubt my wife and children will join me, but we all have our own paths to follow." He punctuated his words with a nervous, dry cough. I had given up talking to him about his health. He was certainly well qualified to know what was going on inside his lungs.
16
Soraya seemed happy, and she no longer got angry over little things. Nabil was growing up in a peaceful household. I had no complaints about my wife, but I still felt the need to have a secret affair with Lola, an Andalusian woman who worked at the Spanish consulate. I didn't feel I was betraying Soraya, and had no guilt whatsoever. Lola looked as if shed stepped out of a Modigliani painting. She lived in her own world. She said she did not belong to anyone, and that she preferred romance to friendship. In fact, her sensuality attracted many lovers. I first met her with Tarik, a physical therapist, probably the only openly gay Moroccan in Tangier.
Well aware of her charms, Lola was always the one to make the first move. In the beginning, I tried to resist. I liked her, but I had long since given up on sexual relationships that weren't going anywhere. Yet I felt a strong desire to respond. Why mire myself forever in the pseudo-comfort of a routine life? After a while, I realized that I had gone along out of a desire to imitate Mamed, not to upset him. I had decided to remain faithful to my wife and not give in to carnal desire. Yet I was bored with the routine of it all, the nights Soraya and I would have sex, the nights she had headaches, the nights I went out with my male friends. I couldn't stand this routine any more. The temptation of risk and adventure became too great. I didn't say anything to Mamed about this when I gave him the latest news from Tangier. When he asked about me, I told him everything was fine, Soraya was fine, there was nothing to report.
A sort of mutual modesty had emerged between Mamed and me. We no longer joked about our private lives. Sex became something we never talked about. I was tempted to tell him about my affair with Lola, but I knew he might be shocked, so I said nothing. It was impossible to know which of the two of us had the upper hand in our relationship. We complemented each another; we needed each other. We both acknowledged this, and we took a certain pride in it. Like me, Mamed preferred friendship, a bond we chose, to the family bonds imposed on us. I had no reason to complain about my older brother, but we were not friends.
Lola liked to make love everywhere but in the bedroom. She had spots all over the city, as well as on the Old Mountain, where she liked to have sex. The first time, we did it in her car. I hated it. It reminded me of the frustrating sessions with Zina in my youth. Lola had thought of everything: condoms in the glove compartment, cloths dipped in eau de cologne, towels, even a club hidden under the seat in case we were attacked. She was an expert. I left her car stiff and disheveled, feeling like I had just ridden the bumper cars at a carnival.
The second time, she took me to an abandoned hut near Donabo Park. She pulled a blanket and all the other necessary accoutrements out of her car. She was highly aroused. When she came, she cried out in Arabic, "Hamdoullah," and in Spanish, "Gracias a Dios," thanks to God. This made me laugh. I had barely caught my breath when she turned over on her stomach and told me to take her from behind. That evening, my knees hurt.
Another time, Lola arranged to meet me in the office of the Spanish consul, who had gone back to Madrid on family business. She was naked under a transparent jellaba. "Fuck me here, on the boss's desk, on top of his files and old newspapers. Don't touch anything, or move anything," she said. "Here. I want you. Shut the door, but don't close the curtains. The light is beautiful."
With Lola I traveled through time and space. She gave me enormous pleasure. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed making love. As in our youth, I thought of Mamed, who must have experienced the same feelings. Once we had shared a girl. It was a game. Afterward, we asked which one of us she preferred. She laughed and said it was like making love with the same man, which we took as proof of our virility. The sharing stopped when we both married. The time for games and swapping was over. We entered a serious phase-that is, a boring routine. It was to escape this routine that I had my affair with Lola.