Hunger leads me to the store. I make my way inside Hassan and Houssein’s little business. This year it’s Hassan’s turn to run the show, while his brother takes care of their farm; his turn to stand behind the long wooden counter, surrounded by walls shelved from floor to ceiling, and vertical corner to vertical corner, to display a great inventory of merchandise, containing every imaginable item a household may possibly need; his turn to inflate the tabs, and why not, a large majority of this establishment’s clientele, mostly local, keep, stored in a drawer underneath the counter along with a couple of pencils, pens and a single calculator, and in tiny spiral-bound notebooks filled with the book-keeper’s own, conveniently, undecipherable hand-writing –as bad as that of a seasoned doctor; and his turn to work day and night at building a better and safer future for his sons, whom, he watches as they run, climb lathers, fill bags, deliver goods, and most importantly learn the ropes of a business that shall one day become theirs, and so the baton is passed from generation to generation.
As a greeting gesture, Hassan feigns a minimal smile from behind his reading glasses, before diving back into his favorite activity, checking numbers, but only after haven taken notice that his boys are coming towards me smiling and, as usually, thrilled about this short and entertaining visit of mine, ready to laugh at my peculiarities, and why not, share a few jokes before going about their business, seemingly carefree in grease and dirt covered clothes full of holes.
These kids, with very little education, the bare minimum, just enough to read, write and solve simple mathematical problems, seem to enjoy being overworked. In other countries and under different circumstances, this would certainly be considered child slavery. But here, where no option is better than another, their treatment is just an indicator for another way, another approach and philosophy. This is the way of the Berbers, descendants of this land’s true natives, a somewhat derided, and lightly trampled, ethnical group that nonetheless forms part of the national fabric.
I dare not judge, for under their seemingly miserable appearance, there is a peacefulness that can be noticed in eyes that show neither discontent nor pain, but rather life unspoiled by an epidemic and very common boredom. These boys emanate pride and contentment and remain out of greed’s and envy’s reach –Life with a purpose. Yes, These boys have a real purpose; not one of those spawned by shear human psychosis and driven by ill feelings of dissatisfaction, envy, and greed as vessels for the basest types of aspirations –such as mine.
I remember the murkiness of my own feelings surfacing at a very young age, bred by an over-protective mother suffocating her asthmatic son, in the name of motherly love, keeping him locked in an apartment, with only windows and books to gaze from, leaving him no choice but to find solace in dreams of escape and freedom, the way a caged bird would –I think.
I remember learning to be jealous of those playing outside, running and kicking balls. I began hating sickness, doctors, prescriptions, shots and medicine. I detested protection and with it affection. I dreamed of running, unbound space, faithful acolytes, dangerous games. But most of all, I dreamed of being normal. These were my first, and therefore life-shaping, aspirations. As far as I can tell, and I’d bet my wallet on the fact that it is the same for everyone else, these first aspirations, as if carved in stone with an unforgiving chisel, are the source of all evil, driving and pushing us against or away from one another.
I remember the Nasrani looking boy with long straight hair and white skin- yours himself, walking down the street with his mother. We were coming back from the marketplace. I can almost feel that gently and so well behaved boy be consumed, at once, in a split second, in less time than it takes to say, ‘Excuse me…,’ by rage and anger, causing him to unleash a flood of violence no one, not even himself, would have guessed existed inside the frailty of his asthmatic body, savagely attacking older males who had innocently mistook him for a little girl during a polite conversation with the mother, turning him to a fury, a demon out of whose tiny hands flew a storm of lethal little rocks, while he victoriously screamed in the direction of the scattering, bruised, and bleeding mob “I am a BOY. I am a BOY.” That day, I had tasted the glory of rage and the sweetness of freedom, as they carved an essay on the virtues and rewards of conflict. The same conflict, I haven’t seized seeking ever since.
Under Hassan’s scrutinizing eyes, I take my time to pick something that would satiate my hunger. Were I more adventurous, I’d try on of those -not too sanitary- sandwiches he usually takes less than a minute to slap together, wrap and bag. However, since I am a big proponent of avoiding self-inflicted food poisoning, I opt for an ‘Henry’s choco’: twelve chocolate covered French cookies in a sealed, to retain freshness, box, the same item I buy everyday, sometimes twice –I guess, we could call it another addiction.
My supplier reaches for the highest box in pyramidal arrangement, sitting in a tight stack, on the counter, behind a glass divider separating his world from mine. A boundary he rarely goes beyond, and which I had managed to cross, first as a child, whose motto per excellence was, ‘Curiosity rules,’ and then later just to push Hassan’s buttons –and should I say burst his bubble.
And while we’re on the subject of bubbles, I have to admit that to this very day, I still despise them all, be they personality, religious, ethnic, phobic, social, economic ones. Somehow, and regardless of what they stand for, they are the windmills of my insanity. Bursting them has become a subconsciously ingrained mission that pushes me to show no mercy as I advance on a quest to slay my wicked nemesis, and free every soul imprisoned within. This is my life long pursuit. This is my revolution; a bubble free revolution.
Yes, I love and seek conflict. I push buttons, hit sensitive spots, squeeze Achilles tendons. If I were to be pretentious I’d boast that I find it my duty to actually bring these folks, who unbeknownst to themselves are lost in some redundant chapter from the play of their lives, back on the right track. Or that I give them a boost of awakening energy to see the error of their ways. But preferring honesty, I’ll just admit that I see myself as a parasite living of what I presume is their rebirth; their grasping for a first breath and ray of light.
As I search my pockets for change, little happy laborers rush to welcome the new customer. They greet her with broken French, never missing a chance to practice foreign languages. Sister Marie-francoise, a new member of the convent located not too far from here. I’ve come to know her through my religiously confused mother, who while claiming to be Muslim, pays periodical visits to the massive ‘Eglise de Notre Dame,’ at the end of Avenue Mers-Sultan, where she has made it a habit of hers to lights a few candles under the forgiving and watchful eye of ‘Virgin’ Marie’s statue.
For a second, a mental window opens just a crack inside my head, and calls for my attention. But realizing what big questions lie hidden behind, I fake disinterest, and after all, in this country of contradictions, nothing surprises me anymore; especially not this French nun, one of the latest occupier’s representatives, having a conversation with children who, in their very blood, carry their ancestors’ torch, representing a lineage that has stood the test of time and history with all its invasions and intruders, and is still fighting for the prevalence of its language, culture, and heritage. Actually, if one was to think about it in contrast with the fact that this land is a place of infinite possibilities, the interaction that is taking place before my eyes is not worth much analyzing.
Yet I cannot resist analyzing the scene as it unfolds, with me as an biased witness, who is all too aware that this country which long before the colonial division, before Islam, saw its children, the Berbers, the mountain dwellers, rule North Africa from the Atlantic Western shore all the way to what is now Libya; stand against all those who came, claimed, and conquered; and survive them the whole lot (Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Spaniards, Germans and French), by always adapting to the chaos they’d all bring and leave behind.
This is a land built on defiance and struggle which persist even today through the ‘Baraberah’ who continue to adapt and fight, having shifted their resistance toward a post-colonial nationalist fervor, which they see as sustained by bogus lines; imaginary borders drown on paper by creative, foreign business leaders, hunger-stricken-men-with-means inspired by a common policy of divide and conquer; lines on papers that translate to brick walls, barbed wires, guns aimed at the neighbors, specifically tailored customs, national hymns, slogans, xenophobia, unease, and hatred; lines breeding monarchies and military governments with highly ineffective bureaucracies, redundant reforms, corruption, and highly repressive tendencies.
This is a land of forgetfulness, where a nun, whose ancestors added confusion to confusion by strengthening feelings of loss and alienation (present in the eyes of all those belonging to the family of Franco-post-colonial countries), stands and mingles with the victims of her pretentiously invasive nation, a living symbol that represents times that ought to be erased from the national psyche, shameful times replete with weakness, greed, and evil, a time that cannot be denied, as much as, Sister Marie-Francoise, in all her youth and innocence cannot be rendered invisible. Like it or not, she is a vestige from that undeniable past, along with the architecture, the churches, the convents, the administrative language, the educational curriculum, the dishes, the pastries, the nostalgia, the lies, the anger …and myself, with my Francophone cultural inclinations.
Yet, we are allowed to fit and exist, side by side, because this country is held together by faith and mysticism, next to the pious, the sinner, the atheist, the Sunni, the Shia, the Jew, the Copt, the Ismaily, the Hindu, the gay, the adulterer, the neutral, the biased, the swayed, the moderate and the fundamentalist, all together under the same roof, each free to a certain degree, and as long as we don’t get too excited about imposing our views on others, to be whatever we choose to be. We are permitted to meet brandishing the colors of our truths, our differences and also affinities, as we both seek the Heavens while madly claiming to be the Divine’s messenger, with my way that of pseudo-clarity and detachment, and hers of compassion and faith. In her eyes, I am the lost lamb she wishes to save. In mine, she hides behind a shell of made-up beliefs, through which I see the Woman; the one that had to die, sacrificed, in the name of a higher compassion, and who now, remains buried under self-imposed Holly laws, guilt, myth turned to truism, and pain disguised as piety.
This is a land of conflict, and it is in the spirit of conflict, unbeknownst to this nun, that I imagine us facing each other to do battle in the name of the highest absolutes, she holding a cross to slay an ocean, and I riding a wave to drown the Holly Trinity. Through that shell of hers, she stares at me and find nothing but a reflection of herself. There are no emotions here. Inspired by Freud’s claim that one cannot love when in pain, I embrace the semi-vegetative state of mind I’ve been in since the seed, planted by my mystic grand-mother, watered by the Atlantic’s waves, germinated into a longing for the Beloved that, in a single sweep, conquered both conscious and subconscious. Detached, aloof, I accept the world with all its imperfections. I am a mirror, a reflection of the Universal whole. I am a pearl in Indra’s net. Take that! Then we greet each other, in the most inoffensive of tones. Hassan coughs and nods when I look his way. “Put it on the tab.” “One box of Henry-Chocos.” “Thank you.” In Hassan’s kingdom there shall be no battles of faith, no theological disputes, no warm attempts at proselytizing, and absolutely no monkeying around, only business, and business only, and I know better.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Chapter 8 - I love the feel of deadlines
Fifty-eight minutes later, Sister Marie-Francoise leaves Madame Simonet exactly where she found her, on the same chair, by the same window, staring at a world that is no longer hers. It’s been over a decade since she’s started seeing things through the filter of gloom. It’s also been that long since she began wondering why good old friends had to leave. As far as she is concerned, the independence had been a big mistake for which she was paying the price. “Why?” she wonders, day and night. “This city had so much potential, and look at it now… The streets are covered with garbage and filth. There are too many beggars and too much crime. Buildings, built to last, built in the name of hope and great things to come, are falling in decrepitude, and no one seems to care. Their owners have fled, and property taxes are going unpaid. The city has lost all of its beauty and charm, because those who are flooding its streets, its abandoned flats, don’t understand the value they are inheriting. They come from the country, uneducated poor farmers who can’t keep up with the pressures of modernity. They come unprepared, and untrained, and therefore unable to grasp the most basic rules of sanitation. This is so wrong. There are too many of them and too few of us left, and my children and grandchildren whom I wish I could see more often than once a year- are telling me that they’re happier in France. And maybe they’re right. Maybe, I should leave after all. But at my age… I am just too old to start, although what’s there to start at this point... I am too old. My time has passed, and my days, I hope, are almost over. If only I were younger, then things would be different, but let us not dwell on wishful thinking, I’ve had more than my share of a good life. I’ve laughed. I’ve danced. I’ve enjoyed the tastiest of foods. I’ve drunk memorably. I’ve known love. I’ve traveled. I’ve bathed in the sun. I’ve had children. I’ve lived. I’ve lived… and now, it’s the end of the road.”
The young nun closes the door and sighs. Helplessness feels heavy on her chest, and dreadfully trapped under her robe. She touches the door with her right palm. It feels brittle, shallow; so much like the dying widow sitting behind it, staring out of her window view, down the street, awaiting to rejoin a husband who’s been gone, dead, for ten years now. Unaware of time, she is enduring alone, forgotten by almost everyone, in a city she doesn’t recognize at all, in a new world she hasn’t come to terms with, in a neighborhood that is neither French nor Moroccan, but a place in between, where beauty, art, style and civilization are all slowly being abraded by the rotten teeth of poverty, ignorance and mediocrity -all afflictions brought about by inexorable confluence of hopelessly hopeful masses.
Sister Marie Francoise can still see the wrinkled and depressed smile, disappointed but understanding, intolerant but weak, bitter but forgiving. She can still feel her pulse, tired, distant, fading, and her eyes, so dim, burnt by sorrow, needled by despair… She tries to pray. Her mind rebels, as if a wild beast incaged. She looks within, finding no convictions, no groundings, gives up and walks away, down the stairs, staying clear from the moldy walls that seem infused with bitterness, ravaged by a crippling plague, and struggling to breathe an air that feels so thickly acrid. Nauseated, she fastens her pace, spiraling down toward a light, she vividly pictures at the base of that catacomb of darkness, that living ruin she had willingly entered. She wants to scream, as her habit hinders her movements, but resists the temptation, because she’s almost there… She sees the ground floor; one more step and she’s there.
Without a warning, a blur of a figure steps out the door next to the stairway. Sister Marie-Francoise jumps back, clearly startled by this brusque apparition that came too close to collide with her, brings her free hand to her chest, and drops a black plastic bag full of clothes that have to be washed before the day is over.
“I am so sorry,” Enveloped in shadow, he lowers his voice and picks up the bag, “Are you alright?”
She exhales, “Yes…yes, you just came out so fast.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She waves her hand, dismissing the matter, “It’s nothing, really… I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
He hands her the bag, after taking a second to examine it, “At least there isn’t anything breakable in here.”
“Thank you… Marcos.” She smiles with clear reservation, and her eyes narrowing as she strains to focus on his hidden features.
He steps aside, and out of her way, “Have good day, Sister.”
Sister Marie-Francoise nods and walks down the six stairs that lead her out, and through the main entrance. As she touches the irreparably corroded door in the shape of crisscrossing iron bars, and for a reason unknown to her, perhaps responding to a reflex she isn’t able to control, she turns around and glances furtively at this character she’s been aware of for quite some years now, and finds him looking at her, his undeniably pleasant face caught in a lighted pool of flowing dust particles. She smiles nervously, at the ragged figure that is nonchalantly hanging between light and shadows, before finally extracting herself from his prodding eyes, full of questions and mysteries, by turning around and walking away.
The young nun closes the door and sighs. Helplessness feels heavy on her chest, and dreadfully trapped under her robe. She touches the door with her right palm. It feels brittle, shallow; so much like the dying widow sitting behind it, staring out of her window view, down the street, awaiting to rejoin a husband who’s been gone, dead, for ten years now. Unaware of time, she is enduring alone, forgotten by almost everyone, in a city she doesn’t recognize at all, in a new world she hasn’t come to terms with, in a neighborhood that is neither French nor Moroccan, but a place in between, where beauty, art, style and civilization are all slowly being abraded by the rotten teeth of poverty, ignorance and mediocrity -all afflictions brought about by inexorable confluence of hopelessly hopeful masses.
Sister Marie Francoise can still see the wrinkled and depressed smile, disappointed but understanding, intolerant but weak, bitter but forgiving. She can still feel her pulse, tired, distant, fading, and her eyes, so dim, burnt by sorrow, needled by despair… She tries to pray. Her mind rebels, as if a wild beast incaged. She looks within, finding no convictions, no groundings, gives up and walks away, down the stairs, staying clear from the moldy walls that seem infused with bitterness, ravaged by a crippling plague, and struggling to breathe an air that feels so thickly acrid. Nauseated, she fastens her pace, spiraling down toward a light, she vividly pictures at the base of that catacomb of darkness, that living ruin she had willingly entered. She wants to scream, as her habit hinders her movements, but resists the temptation, because she’s almost there… She sees the ground floor; one more step and she’s there.
Without a warning, a blur of a figure steps out the door next to the stairway. Sister Marie-Francoise jumps back, clearly startled by this brusque apparition that came too close to collide with her, brings her free hand to her chest, and drops a black plastic bag full of clothes that have to be washed before the day is over.
“I am so sorry,” Enveloped in shadow, he lowers his voice and picks up the bag, “Are you alright?”
She exhales, “Yes…yes, you just came out so fast.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She waves her hand, dismissing the matter, “It’s nothing, really… I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
He hands her the bag, after taking a second to examine it, “At least there isn’t anything breakable in here.”
“Thank you… Marcos.” She smiles with clear reservation, and her eyes narrowing as she strains to focus on his hidden features.
He steps aside, and out of her way, “Have good day, Sister.”
Sister Marie-Francoise nods and walks down the six stairs that lead her out, and through the main entrance. As she touches the irreparably corroded door in the shape of crisscrossing iron bars, and for a reason unknown to her, perhaps responding to a reflex she isn’t able to control, she turns around and glances furtively at this character she’s been aware of for quite some years now, and finds him looking at her, his undeniably pleasant face caught in a lighted pool of flowing dust particles. She smiles nervously, at the ragged figure that is nonchalantly hanging between light and shadows, before finally extracting herself from his prodding eyes, full of questions and mysteries, by turning around and walking away.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Chapter 6
Then last night, the wind turned, and the depression we had been feeding on died out. The spot became too windy, and the waves too small and inconsistent. Then, as if to make the experience even less enjoyable, a messy situation escalated on the dunes. So, I chose wisdom over haste, and, why should I allow a couple of French snobs, who still think they own the country, gang-up on me, just because I punched one of their buddies and drew a little blood from his nose?
As it is always the case, this unfortunate altercation had something to do with a recurring theme titled ‘My girl,’ brought into the open by a certain Mr. Frenchman, who seemed under the impression that if we were to just open our eyes to hear his shouts, then we surely would realize that the friendly female involved in this scenario was actually, not just with him, but his –some folks can’t resist pretentiously owning others. Now, and for my defense, I didn’t even know they were together. All I remember is that last night he smoked his brains out, passed out and left her alone. Beneath a million gleaming stars, Sofie and I started talking. The conversation was fun, which means we were laughing and taking a reciprocated liking to each other’s personalities. So we took a little walk, away from the others, and then we returned, not knowing that a belligerent fool would throw a fit because of that.
But it wasn’t just the fight, for as the saying goes, when it rains, it pours, and thus, just to add more frustration to my pot of overflowing frustrations, I also nicked my board surfing in water that was too shallow, and that is even worse than a fist fight. You see, a dinged board takes in water, which not only makes it heavier than it should be but also ruins it from inside, meaning, I have to get the tools and the chemicals, and take time to make it look as if brand new, maybe tonight, on Marcos’s building rooftop, since home is out of the question, for the simple reason that resin’s toxic fumes are too strong to be handled indoors.
Plus, I’ll also get to hang out with Marcos. The last time I saw him and his followers was a week ago. They were getting drunk behind the thick and tainted double glass doors of his building. It was the beginning of a party they had planned to finish at ‘La cage’, a night club by the port, near the old city and the train station, and part of one of the first western inspired outdoor shopping centers to be added to our bloated city –another place I’ve come to avoid.
La cage used to be okay when management had a stricter door policy, one that only allowed the rich, the Jew, the foreign, and a few lucky nobodies pretending to be important kind of like myself and Marcos, past its door–locals abstain! Now, the place is full of malnourished and penniless characters from the old city and all the other slums along the port’s waters, pumped up with too much adrenaline dangerously mixed with alcohol, or, hallucinogenic pills, or a combination of the two. Naturally when that kind of clientele converges into a single space, the atmosphere tends to get ugly very quickly, and for good reasons too. Not only, the testosterone levels shoot upward and off the chart, but the pent-up sexual frustration reaches past a dangerous threshold beyond which nothing good can be expected.
Marcos doesn’t mind the madness, mainly because he is on a mission to keep boredom at bay, unwilling to stop moving, or sobering up. He just keeps on going, playing with danger, pushing past the acceptable, challenging the city, and by doing so the whole of Morocco. Although, I have to admit that he actually blends in better than I do –the Spanish conqueror, loved by the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims -a sort of peacemaker, sought by all. Sometimes, I envy him for being so much more at home than I could ever be, although, I would never want to be in his shoes. In the end, and like some wise teacher might say, ‘To each his life, and to each his demons.’ Marcos and I might seem so similar on this outside, but don’t let superficiality fool you, the differences dwell deeper within, where they actually matter.
Take my case for example… for as long as I can remember, I’ve been lost between two irreconcilable cultures that have been wrestling each other in a match where the winner takes all, and who needs a referee. Even today, my world continues to crumble before my eyes, as the French quarter is swallowed by an unstoppable nationalism. The Foreigner leaves and is replaced by the native. A few choose to stay, either because they’re too old to go back, too stubborn to compromise, or just rich enough to assume that by moving to villas and gated properties, a little closer to the beach by the royal palace, the Saudi Palace and mosque, they’d be out of change’s reach.
Change is here, and shall not be denied. Nothing can stop that flood of darker complexions, curlier hair, different flavor and noise. No. Absolutely nothing. The walls of my comfort zone keep on collapsing under the pressure of this invasion, as the North African moves back in and attempts to take over, reclaiming what is rightfully his, much like the way nature eventually reclaims it all, bringing along his music, smells, and customs to my doorsteps and window view, moving in next to, above, and all around me.
Change is here and it won’t take long. Yesterday’s dam is breached beyond repair. Who shall keep it from collapsing? Relics from the past, I doubt it. How many of us are left anyway? Not enough. We’re more like islands, too small to be called even that, in a Moroccan storming sea. Time will take care of us eventually. Time will erase all traces of our existence, and in the end even our faintest memories will dissolve with the needles of time rotate relentlessly and History unfolds.
So I am brace myself, and wait the imminent collision, as both the lower and middle class chase the shadow of its rich and wealthy, leaving them nowhere to hide. I am watching, as the inevitable takes place. Already, the brown moppet shares the road with the Class S Mercedes-Benz, the Renault defiantly passes the BMW. Even beyond this neighborhood, you can see the signs of shocking contrast, with mansions a few blocks away from the slum housings, and the whole roofline equally strewn with satellite dishes, under which the poor, as much as the rich, dreams of escape.
The rich and the poor live side by side. Separated by less than a broken line traced on shifting sands, they often meet and collude to loot my city, thieves and security guards, criminals and corrupted policemen protecting those who have too much from the rest who lack it all, with badges, titles and knifes to commit their crimes, with drugs to subdue and religion to reprimand, while poverty spawns prostitution to feed either wealth or depravation. Everything happening between infernal circles and heavenly morals, in the heart of contradiction, in so much despair that it makes the air we breathe malignantly sickening -but what else should we expect when swimming in both filth and sin?
Marcos laughs when I talk about this. He says I have the ‘surfer’s syndrome,’ which is a creation of his. According to him some surfers spend too much time in the water, and under the sun, which can’t possibly be a healthy thing. The Spaniard will have you believe that there have to be consequences to this addiction, and the first signs are awfully clear and easy to spot. Apparently, it all starts when the inflicted surfer begins withdrawing from others, getting up at impossible hours, and, has been heard fantasizing about waves. Then, the situation begins digressing, very quickly. The unhealthy subject loses interest in his girlfriend who dumps him in return, but he doesn’t care. In fact, he probably, already has stopped having a social life, except for the bare minimum, and has undoubtedly lost his drive for success along with whatever good sense he might have had.
I keep on arguing that he’s wrong –at least partly. I’m a surfer. I can’t help being drawn to the shore. Wave after wave, I struggle for the only purpose of surrendering. It’s an addiction with a heavy price: a deeper sensitivity which brings upon pain… too much pain; enough to experience life’s duality, enough to cleanse me out of all the rubbish that doesn’t matter, so that hopefully, if I am wise and lucky, I will find comfort and clarity, in the heart of agony.
I keep on telling him, that some day, all will be clear, and the way it should be. The whole universe will appear like moving water, forever similar, forever different. Life is change. Life is contrast. Yin and Yang containing and chasing one another. But Marcos shakes his head and says, “Surfer’s syndrome. I’m telling you, bro.” And I give him the finger and respond, “Someday, you too will get it. Someday, you too will let go and embody the message.”
As it is always the case, this unfortunate altercation had something to do with a recurring theme titled ‘My girl,’ brought into the open by a certain Mr. Frenchman, who seemed under the impression that if we were to just open our eyes to hear his shouts, then we surely would realize that the friendly female involved in this scenario was actually, not just with him, but his –some folks can’t resist pretentiously owning others. Now, and for my defense, I didn’t even know they were together. All I remember is that last night he smoked his brains out, passed out and left her alone. Beneath a million gleaming stars, Sofie and I started talking. The conversation was fun, which means we were laughing and taking a reciprocated liking to each other’s personalities. So we took a little walk, away from the others, and then we returned, not knowing that a belligerent fool would throw a fit because of that.
But it wasn’t just the fight, for as the saying goes, when it rains, it pours, and thus, just to add more frustration to my pot of overflowing frustrations, I also nicked my board surfing in water that was too shallow, and that is even worse than a fist fight. You see, a dinged board takes in water, which not only makes it heavier than it should be but also ruins it from inside, meaning, I have to get the tools and the chemicals, and take time to make it look as if brand new, maybe tonight, on Marcos’s building rooftop, since home is out of the question, for the simple reason that resin’s toxic fumes are too strong to be handled indoors.
Plus, I’ll also get to hang out with Marcos. The last time I saw him and his followers was a week ago. They were getting drunk behind the thick and tainted double glass doors of his building. It was the beginning of a party they had planned to finish at ‘La cage’, a night club by the port, near the old city and the train station, and part of one of the first western inspired outdoor shopping centers to be added to our bloated city –another place I’ve come to avoid.
La cage used to be okay when management had a stricter door policy, one that only allowed the rich, the Jew, the foreign, and a few lucky nobodies pretending to be important kind of like myself and Marcos, past its door–locals abstain! Now, the place is full of malnourished and penniless characters from the old city and all the other slums along the port’s waters, pumped up with too much adrenaline dangerously mixed with alcohol, or, hallucinogenic pills, or a combination of the two. Naturally when that kind of clientele converges into a single space, the atmosphere tends to get ugly very quickly, and for good reasons too. Not only, the testosterone levels shoot upward and off the chart, but the pent-up sexual frustration reaches past a dangerous threshold beyond which nothing good can be expected.
Marcos doesn’t mind the madness, mainly because he is on a mission to keep boredom at bay, unwilling to stop moving, or sobering up. He just keeps on going, playing with danger, pushing past the acceptable, challenging the city, and by doing so the whole of Morocco. Although, I have to admit that he actually blends in better than I do –the Spanish conqueror, loved by the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims -a sort of peacemaker, sought by all. Sometimes, I envy him for being so much more at home than I could ever be, although, I would never want to be in his shoes. In the end, and like some wise teacher might say, ‘To each his life, and to each his demons.’ Marcos and I might seem so similar on this outside, but don’t let superficiality fool you, the differences dwell deeper within, where they actually matter.
Take my case for example… for as long as I can remember, I’ve been lost between two irreconcilable cultures that have been wrestling each other in a match where the winner takes all, and who needs a referee. Even today, my world continues to crumble before my eyes, as the French quarter is swallowed by an unstoppable nationalism. The Foreigner leaves and is replaced by the native. A few choose to stay, either because they’re too old to go back, too stubborn to compromise, or just rich enough to assume that by moving to villas and gated properties, a little closer to the beach by the royal palace, the Saudi Palace and mosque, they’d be out of change’s reach.
Change is here, and shall not be denied. Nothing can stop that flood of darker complexions, curlier hair, different flavor and noise. No. Absolutely nothing. The walls of my comfort zone keep on collapsing under the pressure of this invasion, as the North African moves back in and attempts to take over, reclaiming what is rightfully his, much like the way nature eventually reclaims it all, bringing along his music, smells, and customs to my doorsteps and window view, moving in next to, above, and all around me.
Change is here and it won’t take long. Yesterday’s dam is breached beyond repair. Who shall keep it from collapsing? Relics from the past, I doubt it. How many of us are left anyway? Not enough. We’re more like islands, too small to be called even that, in a Moroccan storming sea. Time will take care of us eventually. Time will erase all traces of our existence, and in the end even our faintest memories will dissolve with the needles of time rotate relentlessly and History unfolds.
So I am brace myself, and wait the imminent collision, as both the lower and middle class chase the shadow of its rich and wealthy, leaving them nowhere to hide. I am watching, as the inevitable takes place. Already, the brown moppet shares the road with the Class S Mercedes-Benz, the Renault defiantly passes the BMW. Even beyond this neighborhood, you can see the signs of shocking contrast, with mansions a few blocks away from the slum housings, and the whole roofline equally strewn with satellite dishes, under which the poor, as much as the rich, dreams of escape.
The rich and the poor live side by side. Separated by less than a broken line traced on shifting sands, they often meet and collude to loot my city, thieves and security guards, criminals and corrupted policemen protecting those who have too much from the rest who lack it all, with badges, titles and knifes to commit their crimes, with drugs to subdue and religion to reprimand, while poverty spawns prostitution to feed either wealth or depravation. Everything happening between infernal circles and heavenly morals, in the heart of contradiction, in so much despair that it makes the air we breathe malignantly sickening -but what else should we expect when swimming in both filth and sin?
Marcos laughs when I talk about this. He says I have the ‘surfer’s syndrome,’ which is a creation of his. According to him some surfers spend too much time in the water, and under the sun, which can’t possibly be a healthy thing. The Spaniard will have you believe that there have to be consequences to this addiction, and the first signs are awfully clear and easy to spot. Apparently, it all starts when the inflicted surfer begins withdrawing from others, getting up at impossible hours, and, has been heard fantasizing about waves. Then, the situation begins digressing, very quickly. The unhealthy subject loses interest in his girlfriend who dumps him in return, but he doesn’t care. In fact, he probably, already has stopped having a social life, except for the bare minimum, and has undoubtedly lost his drive for success along with whatever good sense he might have had.
I keep on arguing that he’s wrong –at least partly. I’m a surfer. I can’t help being drawn to the shore. Wave after wave, I struggle for the only purpose of surrendering. It’s an addiction with a heavy price: a deeper sensitivity which brings upon pain… too much pain; enough to experience life’s duality, enough to cleanse me out of all the rubbish that doesn’t matter, so that hopefully, if I am wise and lucky, I will find comfort and clarity, in the heart of agony.
I keep on telling him, that some day, all will be clear, and the way it should be. The whole universe will appear like moving water, forever similar, forever different. Life is change. Life is contrast. Yin and Yang containing and chasing one another. But Marcos shakes his head and says, “Surfer’s syndrome. I’m telling you, bro.” And I give him the finger and respond, “Someday, you too will get it. Someday, you too will let go and embody the message.”
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Chapter 7 -we're skipping 6
Sister Marie-Francoise, sheltered in the piousness of her habit -wool frocks and starched white wimples, threads through the streets of Casablanca, between the signs of glitter and excrement, through familiar strangeness, in a labyrinth of irreconcilable dichotomies. Her light steps, steady and determined. Yet her eyes, comfortingly green on the surface, if anyone was inclined to look deeper, were brimming with sadness.
She stops in front of 8 Rue Rouchd’s entrance, where four little boys are playing with colorful marbles. She says “Bonjour,” and waits for the children to move from the doorway, before entering the French designed-and-built structure, probably from the forties, that was never renovated, despite its fissured walls, faulty plumbing, and archaic wiring. She takes a deep breath and begins climbing a crackled but solid stairway.
Heading upward, past humidity’s ravaging touches, she wishes she were someone else, with a completely different life, one with real problems, one with less burdensome weaknesses. There is so much turmoil inside of her, waiting, waiting for a chance to be released, and the spiraling narrow stairway isn’t helping at all. It is as if each step is taking her closer to the throbbing source of an incipient, and most discomforting, doubt she’d rather not confront. But, she is who she is, and why should it be otherwise, when neither discomfort nor doubt is novel to her? She’s been this way since the beginning, and even before the vows.
There are questions that cannot be ignored. She’s tried her hardest to dismiss them, but they just keep on coming back, louder each time, like echoes in some infernal cave. She tries to justify, but her mind is blurred with regret. She tries to be strong, but her will has long been consumed in a vacuum of helplessness. She wishes she could make this world of worries stop from spinning inside her head, but doesn’t really know how.
Someone, or something, inside of her, is banging against the thin walls of her serenity, shaking her convictions, stirring her certitudes, shouting, “Where is the peace you were searching for?” “Where is the passion you should feel?” “Where is the grace you’re supposed to emulate?” Then there are the facts, as rigid as steel, unbreakable chains holding her pinned to the moral intransigence of responsibility.
Sister Marie-Francoise moves upward, upward, because she knows her role. She knows what is expected of her, and how it all came to be defined. Certainly, she didn’t have a say, and no matter how much she spins this tale of hers, she’ll keep on finding nothing but causes, external and mostly beyond her control. So, it is left is silence. Unfortunately, silence isn’t a solution. In fact with enough time it becomes part of the problem, the way it has. Then there is no way no to hide. All the tricks have been used and not of them will work again. Still she climbs, chocking in a cold silence that hurts so bad she wants to stop, turn around and run back down to the light of day.
Yet, the nun no matter how lost refuses to give in. She goes on, defying every demon hiding within. A dying heart, up there, on the third floor, in apartment #5, needs her assistance. A frail wrinkled body, once strong and lively, a feeble mind, once alert and vibrant, sitting patiently in front of a window, awaits her arrival, her care, her tenderness, her compassion. Today, as much as yesterday, Sister Marie-Francoise wants to turn around and run away, yet she doesn’t.
She stops in front of 8 Rue Rouchd’s entrance, where four little boys are playing with colorful marbles. She says “Bonjour,” and waits for the children to move from the doorway, before entering the French designed-and-built structure, probably from the forties, that was never renovated, despite its fissured walls, faulty plumbing, and archaic wiring. She takes a deep breath and begins climbing a crackled but solid stairway.
Heading upward, past humidity’s ravaging touches, she wishes she were someone else, with a completely different life, one with real problems, one with less burdensome weaknesses. There is so much turmoil inside of her, waiting, waiting for a chance to be released, and the spiraling narrow stairway isn’t helping at all. It is as if each step is taking her closer to the throbbing source of an incipient, and most discomforting, doubt she’d rather not confront. But, she is who she is, and why should it be otherwise, when neither discomfort nor doubt is novel to her? She’s been this way since the beginning, and even before the vows.
There are questions that cannot be ignored. She’s tried her hardest to dismiss them, but they just keep on coming back, louder each time, like echoes in some infernal cave. She tries to justify, but her mind is blurred with regret. She tries to be strong, but her will has long been consumed in a vacuum of helplessness. She wishes she could make this world of worries stop from spinning inside her head, but doesn’t really know how.
Someone, or something, inside of her, is banging against the thin walls of her serenity, shaking her convictions, stirring her certitudes, shouting, “Where is the peace you were searching for?” “Where is the passion you should feel?” “Where is the grace you’re supposed to emulate?” Then there are the facts, as rigid as steel, unbreakable chains holding her pinned to the moral intransigence of responsibility.
Sister Marie-Francoise moves upward, upward, because she knows her role. She knows what is expected of her, and how it all came to be defined. Certainly, she didn’t have a say, and no matter how much she spins this tale of hers, she’ll keep on finding nothing but causes, external and mostly beyond her control. So, it is left is silence. Unfortunately, silence isn’t a solution. In fact with enough time it becomes part of the problem, the way it has. Then there is no way no to hide. All the tricks have been used and not of them will work again. Still she climbs, chocking in a cold silence that hurts so bad she wants to stop, turn around and run back down to the light of day.
Yet, the nun no matter how lost refuses to give in. She goes on, defying every demon hiding within. A dying heart, up there, on the third floor, in apartment #5, needs her assistance. A frail wrinkled body, once strong and lively, a feeble mind, once alert and vibrant, sitting patiently in front of a window, awaits her arrival, her care, her tenderness, her compassion. Today, as much as yesterday, Sister Marie-Francoise wants to turn around and run away, yet she doesn’t.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Chapter 4 -continued
Today however, as I walk home, I don’t look up. I know he’s gone, and all that remains is vanishing memories, as I pass the grocer’s and butcher’s where I spent quite some time during my innocent years. The butcher a wealthy Berber, kept an eye on me while my mom had gone to run errands. He was, indeed, one of my many potential and alternating babysitters along with the Italian wood sculptor who owned a store next to the French daycare center, out of which music would come out blasting, every week day morning, right across the street from our home.
Those were the trusted men I spent time with: An old Italian artist covered in saw dust, who with pencils, chisels, and many other measuring and cutting tools, transformed simple blocks of wood into incredible religiously inspired portraits and amazingly detailed ecclesiastical scenes. A Berber, always dressed in a white coat and a leather apron, who spent his days handling dangerously sharp objects, skillfully cutting, carving, chopping up meat he’d weigh it up, before wrapping it in both paper and plastic, and hand it to a customer standing on the other side of a marble stone counter –otherwise he’d be fattening the neighborhood stray cats.
They’re both gone now. The artist, too old, closed shop and went to live with his grandchildren. The Berber retired and turned his apron to his eldest son. Leaving nothing but memories for me to walk past, before I cross the street, reach 14 Rue Halab –which used to be 14 Rue Condorcet, until all street were stripped out of their French names and replaced by inspiring Arab one -what I always saw as another useless reform aimed at erasing all signs of colonialism, that shameful episode of a not too distant period of the national history.
Not only that, but 14 Rue Halab, another proof of the independent Moroccan spirit, makes me feel unwanted. 14 Rue condorcet, of French architectural design, falling apart, since the Jewish owner died, since no one claimed it because of years of unpaid property taxes, has become a case amongst hundreds of thousands of other cases, kept in an alphabetical order -whose only purpose appears to be providing a false sense of organization and efficiency, in a file cabinet laying against some dusty wall in some messy office, somewhere in one of those frightening administrative buildings, whose doors are usually guarded by poor –but, highly proud of their moustaches, armed, and frustrated men in green uniforms.
Those were the trusted men I spent time with: An old Italian artist covered in saw dust, who with pencils, chisels, and many other measuring and cutting tools, transformed simple blocks of wood into incredible religiously inspired portraits and amazingly detailed ecclesiastical scenes. A Berber, always dressed in a white coat and a leather apron, who spent his days handling dangerously sharp objects, skillfully cutting, carving, chopping up meat he’d weigh it up, before wrapping it in both paper and plastic, and hand it to a customer standing on the other side of a marble stone counter –otherwise he’d be fattening the neighborhood stray cats.
They’re both gone now. The artist, too old, closed shop and went to live with his grandchildren. The Berber retired and turned his apron to his eldest son. Leaving nothing but memories for me to walk past, before I cross the street, reach 14 Rue Halab –which used to be 14 Rue Condorcet, until all street were stripped out of their French names and replaced by inspiring Arab one -what I always saw as another useless reform aimed at erasing all signs of colonialism, that shameful episode of a not too distant period of the national history.
Not only that, but 14 Rue Halab, another proof of the independent Moroccan spirit, makes me feel unwanted. 14 Rue condorcet, of French architectural design, falling apart, since the Jewish owner died, since no one claimed it because of years of unpaid property taxes, has become a case amongst hundreds of thousands of other cases, kept in an alphabetical order -whose only purpose appears to be providing a false sense of organization and efficiency, in a file cabinet laying against some dusty wall in some messy office, somewhere in one of those frightening administrative buildings, whose doors are usually guarded by poor –but, highly proud of their moustaches, armed, and frustrated men in green uniforms.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Chapter 5 -Sister Marie-Francoise
In the sheltering silence of a dry and austere cubically shaped room, sits a young woman -although no one would refer to her using either one of these descriptive words, and that, despite of her age, twenty two years old, despite of her unquestionable gender, female, for she is bound by three vows, taken long ago, more by necessity than by choice, to be seen, as well as called a nun; a nun who goes by Sister Marie-Francoise.
Unseen, she faces her journal and writes secret thoughts she could not share with anyone but the melting candle that lights up her desk, for her feelings are sinful and her mind is twisted, or so does she believe, at least some times, especially at night, when darkness forces its way into the convent she resides in, flooding every corridor, stairway, and room, patiently waiting for the wax to be consumed, for the flame to die out, so as to wrap itself, like a cold black cloak, over that wretchedly wicked body that is leading her astray.
Yet, as she writes, she cannot help but wonder if it is really her body that is the cause of her deviation from righteousness, or if it is her mind that is wickedly ill. Overwhelmed, and rather frustrated, by her inability to find solace in the peacefulness the house of God provides, she closes her brown leather bound journal and opens it back at its first page. Carefully, she slides four fingers between the binding and the hard inner surface of the book cover, and nervously pulls out, a doubly folded piece of paper. She holds it in her hand, and feels a surge of anxiety, as it begins filling up her chest, pressing against her lungs, her diaphragm, and subsequently her stomach.
The nun looks over her shoulder, at a door she fears to be wide opened, even when she knows that it is locked. She takes a deep breath and looks back at what lies on her left palm. There too much tension in her shoulders, and desire in her belly. She opens the paper, like one would a book, and spreads it on her palm. Riddled with stifling guilt, she focuses on its uneven edge, recalling -the way she always did when touching that paper, how it had been torn from the book that once contained it.
Slowly, and as if out of habit, she begins skimming through black ink lines printed on the yellowing paper, swallowing nervously, hanging between giving in and fighting back, guilt too thin a barrier to be of any use, leaving her with nothing of substance to conceal the nakedness of her desires, surrenders temporarily to her innermost need. She looks away, as if ashamed of herself, hurt by her inability to be strong, to be that model chaste virgin whose life is solely devoted to bringing God into the world, through selfless acts of humility, self-sacrifice, works of charity, suffering in the name of Jesus, being a penance for those who in their weakness have forgotten the lord, embracing agony and humiliation to save lives and deliver as many lost souls from purgatory as she can. She trembles feeling incapable of denying a temptation that has grown larger than everything else, opens the torn paper and spreads it flat against the hard surface of her desk, by brushing it firmly with both hands, until finally giving up on making the two perpendicular creased lines that stubbornly divide the page into four equal boxes disappear.
She reads a poem torn from a book she was not supposed to carry, let alone open. She reads passionately, letting every word ring and fill her head with colorful images and intoxicating feelings. She reads, lustful prose, her heart throbbing to the rhythm of unleashed emotions and blossoming carnal sensations. She reads, scolding verses, sweetly lacerating words, dreaming of unrestrained escapes, a lost soul in the silent spaces separating one word from the other.
She closes her eyes and embraces darkness, the taste of shame still lingering in her mouth, poisonously sweet on the tip of her tongue, treacherously moist against her lips. She tries to hide, filling her mind with unspoken psalms, seeking strength in divine recitation, denouncing the unbearable heat that is undeniably rising within, and desperately invoking the leather lash and the gold leafed Bible. She wraps her thoughts with Hail Maries, as if they were a chain strong enough to keep her anchored and bound to the purity of the Lord. She rolls into a ball, of heat and desire, wriggled by fire, and cries, ‘Forgive me, Father,’ three times. But, her body, that fleshy entity that suffers, wounds, tempts and then decays as the years go by and by, that animal pinned down with weakness, devoid of compassion, evil in nature, unyielding and ablaze, consumes every defense she raises and turns her words into ashes.
Breathing heavily, she sees herself, standing completely naked, in the center of a room built of opaque glass. She looks at one of her reflections on the wall, and, despite the deeply seeded guilt she’s learned to wear as a thorny crown, surrenders to this arousal that is overtaking her, bringing her face to face with a perverted sensuality she would have preferred keeping silenced.
She catches herself gazing longingly at the way her long and wavy brown hair freely falls along her neckline to softly rest over her clavicles and shoulders. Torn, between shame and shamelessness, standing at the gates of perdition, bound to make a choice, she falls out of grace, one more time, and allows her hands to respond to the supplications of her hungering flesh. Tormented by the darkness of her fantasies, (which like black snake that slithers out of the penumbra of her worst fears to sweetly coil itself around her thought,) she rubs her legs together, twists on her bed, struggling to find a way out of her own skin, with her back pressed against the wall.
Cornered with nowhere to go but to hell, she curses the woman she’s been blaming for all her weaknesses -the mother, whom she believes, as she had once been told, must have been a whore- while desperately praying for salvation and redemption. She cries, as neither one is granted, and falls into Satan’s abyss, pulled in by the wickedness of her sins. She begs for mercy. But mercy shall not be granted tonight. She whispers, ‘No,’ but has already gone too far to stop. She wants to scream, but knows her plight shall go ignored. Tired, unable to fight anymore, and defeated, she asks why, and hears no answer. She drifts into the silence of surrender, where peacefully exhausted, she sees a gentle smile on a pleasant face, and eyes, as deep as the night, full of questions and mysteries.
Awake at four, in the quiet darkness of night, she dries her face off, inside her living quarter’s bathroom, before getting out and carefully shutting the shared bathroom door behind her. Moving noiselessly, through the second floor’s hallway, past doors behind which the dancing light of candles can be seen trying to find a way out, she brushes the wall with her right fingertips, wondering what really lies behind each door. She pictures the devoted nuns who have retired to their quarters, on the other side of the bricks and the wood panels she cannot see past, and wonders if she really knows them, or if she only knows façades that each and every one of them erects, the way she does, thus concealing what is their true and faltering nature.
Slowing down in front of each door, she hopes to hear a whisper of doubt, a sigh of malaise, a sound she could relate to, a comforting confirmation that she, after all, is not alone, not as lost, and, as lonely, as she thinks she is. But, as her plight remains unanswered, she lowers her head and hurries back to her room, mostly disappointed in herself for having allowed herself to become so alienated from those she lives amongst, those who raised her, and guided her, as an orphan, after her mother, an unmarried young woman, cheated by a man she might have unfortunately fallen in love with, and unwisely trusted, found herself abandoned and alone, and who then, succumbing to the ravages of the harsh consequences of a not too exemplary lifestyle, followed by a complicated pregnancy, ended up suffering a slow and painful death during labor, surrounded by caring but helpless nuns.
Sister Marie-Francoise wipes her tears off, straightens her bed, gets dressed, reverently putting her wedding gown on, kissing and praying litanies for each and every piece of the habit in which she once made her permanent vows, and in which she will be buried. She hides her sorrow under a pleasantly inspired mask of a face, ready to act out emotions and feelings she doesn’t find within herself, throughout another day of exemplary living, total obedience and devotion to the church, the pope, the Father and God.
Burdened by doubt an guilt, she walks out to meet her sisters, with whom she will bow before the ornate box, recite the Creed, pray the Our Father and the Hail Mary, be charitable to those in need, lean against a pew stall, sing beautiful psalms, join the others for a last prayer, enter silence, line up in front of Mother Superior, bow her head to be sprinkled with holy water, retire, try to sleep, go out for another offering of prayers at two in the morning, retire, try to sleep, meet again to meditate on divine scripture… Just another day spent, in a word of blessed communion wafers, of gold tabernacles, of suspended Virgin Maries, silence, meditation, bibles, celibacy, common refectory, pews, holy water, and single file lines, among those who had judged and chastised her after she shared the nature of her struggle, believing that she would find understanding, not suspecting that she would only receive alienating verbal condemnations and looks.
Unseen, she faces her journal and writes secret thoughts she could not share with anyone but the melting candle that lights up her desk, for her feelings are sinful and her mind is twisted, or so does she believe, at least some times, especially at night, when darkness forces its way into the convent she resides in, flooding every corridor, stairway, and room, patiently waiting for the wax to be consumed, for the flame to die out, so as to wrap itself, like a cold black cloak, over that wretchedly wicked body that is leading her astray.
Yet, as she writes, she cannot help but wonder if it is really her body that is the cause of her deviation from righteousness, or if it is her mind that is wickedly ill. Overwhelmed, and rather frustrated, by her inability to find solace in the peacefulness the house of God provides, she closes her brown leather bound journal and opens it back at its first page. Carefully, she slides four fingers between the binding and the hard inner surface of the book cover, and nervously pulls out, a doubly folded piece of paper. She holds it in her hand, and feels a surge of anxiety, as it begins filling up her chest, pressing against her lungs, her diaphragm, and subsequently her stomach.
The nun looks over her shoulder, at a door she fears to be wide opened, even when she knows that it is locked. She takes a deep breath and looks back at what lies on her left palm. There too much tension in her shoulders, and desire in her belly. She opens the paper, like one would a book, and spreads it on her palm. Riddled with stifling guilt, she focuses on its uneven edge, recalling -the way she always did when touching that paper, how it had been torn from the book that once contained it.
Slowly, and as if out of habit, she begins skimming through black ink lines printed on the yellowing paper, swallowing nervously, hanging between giving in and fighting back, guilt too thin a barrier to be of any use, leaving her with nothing of substance to conceal the nakedness of her desires, surrenders temporarily to her innermost need. She looks away, as if ashamed of herself, hurt by her inability to be strong, to be that model chaste virgin whose life is solely devoted to bringing God into the world, through selfless acts of humility, self-sacrifice, works of charity, suffering in the name of Jesus, being a penance for those who in their weakness have forgotten the lord, embracing agony and humiliation to save lives and deliver as many lost souls from purgatory as she can. She trembles feeling incapable of denying a temptation that has grown larger than everything else, opens the torn paper and spreads it flat against the hard surface of her desk, by brushing it firmly with both hands, until finally giving up on making the two perpendicular creased lines that stubbornly divide the page into four equal boxes disappear.
She reads a poem torn from a book she was not supposed to carry, let alone open. She reads passionately, letting every word ring and fill her head with colorful images and intoxicating feelings. She reads, lustful prose, her heart throbbing to the rhythm of unleashed emotions and blossoming carnal sensations. She reads, scolding verses, sweetly lacerating words, dreaming of unrestrained escapes, a lost soul in the silent spaces separating one word from the other.
She closes her eyes and embraces darkness, the taste of shame still lingering in her mouth, poisonously sweet on the tip of her tongue, treacherously moist against her lips. She tries to hide, filling her mind with unspoken psalms, seeking strength in divine recitation, denouncing the unbearable heat that is undeniably rising within, and desperately invoking the leather lash and the gold leafed Bible. She wraps her thoughts with Hail Maries, as if they were a chain strong enough to keep her anchored and bound to the purity of the Lord. She rolls into a ball, of heat and desire, wriggled by fire, and cries, ‘Forgive me, Father,’ three times. But, her body, that fleshy entity that suffers, wounds, tempts and then decays as the years go by and by, that animal pinned down with weakness, devoid of compassion, evil in nature, unyielding and ablaze, consumes every defense she raises and turns her words into ashes.
Breathing heavily, she sees herself, standing completely naked, in the center of a room built of opaque glass. She looks at one of her reflections on the wall, and, despite the deeply seeded guilt she’s learned to wear as a thorny crown, surrenders to this arousal that is overtaking her, bringing her face to face with a perverted sensuality she would have preferred keeping silenced.
She catches herself gazing longingly at the way her long and wavy brown hair freely falls along her neckline to softly rest over her clavicles and shoulders. Torn, between shame and shamelessness, standing at the gates of perdition, bound to make a choice, she falls out of grace, one more time, and allows her hands to respond to the supplications of her hungering flesh. Tormented by the darkness of her fantasies, (which like black snake that slithers out of the penumbra of her worst fears to sweetly coil itself around her thought,) she rubs her legs together, twists on her bed, struggling to find a way out of her own skin, with her back pressed against the wall.
Cornered with nowhere to go but to hell, she curses the woman she’s been blaming for all her weaknesses -the mother, whom she believes, as she had once been told, must have been a whore- while desperately praying for salvation and redemption. She cries, as neither one is granted, and falls into Satan’s abyss, pulled in by the wickedness of her sins. She begs for mercy. But mercy shall not be granted tonight. She whispers, ‘No,’ but has already gone too far to stop. She wants to scream, but knows her plight shall go ignored. Tired, unable to fight anymore, and defeated, she asks why, and hears no answer. She drifts into the silence of surrender, where peacefully exhausted, she sees a gentle smile on a pleasant face, and eyes, as deep as the night, full of questions and mysteries.
Awake at four, in the quiet darkness of night, she dries her face off, inside her living quarter’s bathroom, before getting out and carefully shutting the shared bathroom door behind her. Moving noiselessly, through the second floor’s hallway, past doors behind which the dancing light of candles can be seen trying to find a way out, she brushes the wall with her right fingertips, wondering what really lies behind each door. She pictures the devoted nuns who have retired to their quarters, on the other side of the bricks and the wood panels she cannot see past, and wonders if she really knows them, or if she only knows façades that each and every one of them erects, the way she does, thus concealing what is their true and faltering nature.
Slowing down in front of each door, she hopes to hear a whisper of doubt, a sigh of malaise, a sound she could relate to, a comforting confirmation that she, after all, is not alone, not as lost, and, as lonely, as she thinks she is. But, as her plight remains unanswered, she lowers her head and hurries back to her room, mostly disappointed in herself for having allowed herself to become so alienated from those she lives amongst, those who raised her, and guided her, as an orphan, after her mother, an unmarried young woman, cheated by a man she might have unfortunately fallen in love with, and unwisely trusted, found herself abandoned and alone, and who then, succumbing to the ravages of the harsh consequences of a not too exemplary lifestyle, followed by a complicated pregnancy, ended up suffering a slow and painful death during labor, surrounded by caring but helpless nuns.
Sister Marie-Francoise wipes her tears off, straightens her bed, gets dressed, reverently putting her wedding gown on, kissing and praying litanies for each and every piece of the habit in which she once made her permanent vows, and in which she will be buried. She hides her sorrow under a pleasantly inspired mask of a face, ready to act out emotions and feelings she doesn’t find within herself, throughout another day of exemplary living, total obedience and devotion to the church, the pope, the Father and God.
Burdened by doubt an guilt, she walks out to meet her sisters, with whom she will bow before the ornate box, recite the Creed, pray the Our Father and the Hail Mary, be charitable to those in need, lean against a pew stall, sing beautiful psalms, join the others for a last prayer, enter silence, line up in front of Mother Superior, bow her head to be sprinkled with holy water, retire, try to sleep, go out for another offering of prayers at two in the morning, retire, try to sleep, meet again to meditate on divine scripture… Just another day spent, in a word of blessed communion wafers, of gold tabernacles, of suspended Virgin Maries, silence, meditation, bibles, celibacy, common refectory, pews, holy water, and single file lines, among those who had judged and chastised her after she shared the nature of her struggle, believing that she would find understanding, not suspecting that she would only receive alienating verbal condemnations and looks.
Chapter 4
“Wa feen! Koulchi Bekheer?” As should be expected, the neighborhood teenagers are hanging out, backs pressed lazily either against the grocer’s see-through glass wall or the side panels of a couple of parked cars, at the exact location where they usually greet me. I stop, knowing that otherwise they’ll start calling me arrogant, which I can be every now and then –but who ever liked hearing the truth when a lie is much sweeter to the ear?
We talk about the weather, the beach, and as it is usually the case, about how lucky I am to be able to come and go as I please, while the bored youth demographic they represent, has no better choice than staying in this very same place, everyday, endlessly and relentlessly killing time, with different hobbies and topics to discuss while lustfully watching parading women in the midst of a flowing river of pedestrians, a river along whose all-to-familiar banks, they, at a much younger age, played ball, effortlessly turning the dullness of their street into a football field. Alas, those days are long gone. Time and poverty have stripped them of all creativity and imagination, before leaving them stranded and hopelessly broken, at this very street corner, stagnant and lethargic, where all they can do was sit and watch. Eventually, they start smoking and drinking. They hide inside building hallways to escape and forget how far dreams are from reality. They drown it all, in intoxicated forgetfulness, thanks to hashish and cheap alcohol –one way or another they find a way to get out of here.
We talk a bit more about the beach, and somehow, laughter, for a moment, brings us closer. Then, I say, ‘Yallah,’ and leave them in their spot of preference, recalling that I too used to sit there, as a child waiting for Daniel to come down. At the time, Daniel, my best friend lived right across the street on the second floor of the corner building facing the grocer’s. I’d scream his name until he’d appear behind a window, or, at the balcony. I hear that he’s is married and works at Tel Aviv Airport.
I still remember our first encounter. I was at home as ususal, and, my world was either held within the covers of old books, or, by the frame of a window view overlooking a portion of my street. I was sitting on the ledge of our apartment’s living room window, watching him play outside, and somehow, and to my great pleasure, discovering that there was another boy with whom I could speak in French, I ended up striking a conversation.
From then on, he’d come and play with me inside my prison but soon he’d gain my mom’s trust and be allowed to introduce me to his world –the street. So for many years, I saw him as my savior, the hero who managed to get me out of my cell, past my mother’s rules and fears. Naturally, I eagerly followed his steps, in the grandest of adventures, allowing him to become a mentor. Later, our paths would take us different directions; Daniel was claimed by the street, while I couldn’t resist the ocean.
Sometime I catch myself looking, furtively, at his apartment windows. It’s been years, now. The bastard never said “Goodbye.” One day here, the next gone. I knew that he was hoping for that opportunity. It was after all his only hope out of poverty, utter boredom, and leaning on the tree, at the corner, day after day, waiting for his turn and chance. He may have been a Jew, but there was nothing for him here, except of course, a tree to support him and his all his unspoken frustrations. The Jewish community was too rich to accept him and Palestine would always stand between him and Moroccans. His mother was too old to control him. While his father, a truck driver, always absent and living with a second wife, somewhere, had passed away years ago.
We were friends despite the Torah and my non-Jewishness. We were friends despite all the little things we didn’t have in common: schools, holidays and customs. My Abrahamic brother had switched to tech school, taken cycling as a hobby, worked as a truck mechanic for a few months. I, on the other hand, just spent my days studying and paddling my way to a wave. Nights, on the other hand were different: They brought us back together, to celebrate our friendship and emancipate ourselves from despair. Nights were for movie theaters, night clubs, and girls.
We talk about the weather, the beach, and as it is usually the case, about how lucky I am to be able to come and go as I please, while the bored youth demographic they represent, has no better choice than staying in this very same place, everyday, endlessly and relentlessly killing time, with different hobbies and topics to discuss while lustfully watching parading women in the midst of a flowing river of pedestrians, a river along whose all-to-familiar banks, they, at a much younger age, played ball, effortlessly turning the dullness of their street into a football field. Alas, those days are long gone. Time and poverty have stripped them of all creativity and imagination, before leaving them stranded and hopelessly broken, at this very street corner, stagnant and lethargic, where all they can do was sit and watch. Eventually, they start smoking and drinking. They hide inside building hallways to escape and forget how far dreams are from reality. They drown it all, in intoxicated forgetfulness, thanks to hashish and cheap alcohol –one way or another they find a way to get out of here.
We talk a bit more about the beach, and somehow, laughter, for a moment, brings us closer. Then, I say, ‘Yallah,’ and leave them in their spot of preference, recalling that I too used to sit there, as a child waiting for Daniel to come down. At the time, Daniel, my best friend lived right across the street on the second floor of the corner building facing the grocer’s. I’d scream his name until he’d appear behind a window, or, at the balcony. I hear that he’s is married and works at Tel Aviv Airport.
I still remember our first encounter. I was at home as ususal, and, my world was either held within the covers of old books, or, by the frame of a window view overlooking a portion of my street. I was sitting on the ledge of our apartment’s living room window, watching him play outside, and somehow, and to my great pleasure, discovering that there was another boy with whom I could speak in French, I ended up striking a conversation.
From then on, he’d come and play with me inside my prison but soon he’d gain my mom’s trust and be allowed to introduce me to his world –the street. So for many years, I saw him as my savior, the hero who managed to get me out of my cell, past my mother’s rules and fears. Naturally, I eagerly followed his steps, in the grandest of adventures, allowing him to become a mentor. Later, our paths would take us different directions; Daniel was claimed by the street, while I couldn’t resist the ocean.
Sometime I catch myself looking, furtively, at his apartment windows. It’s been years, now. The bastard never said “Goodbye.” One day here, the next gone. I knew that he was hoping for that opportunity. It was after all his only hope out of poverty, utter boredom, and leaning on the tree, at the corner, day after day, waiting for his turn and chance. He may have been a Jew, but there was nothing for him here, except of course, a tree to support him and his all his unspoken frustrations. The Jewish community was too rich to accept him and Palestine would always stand between him and Moroccans. His mother was too old to control him. While his father, a truck driver, always absent and living with a second wife, somewhere, had passed away years ago.
We were friends despite the Torah and my non-Jewishness. We were friends despite all the little things we didn’t have in common: schools, holidays and customs. My Abrahamic brother had switched to tech school, taken cycling as a hobby, worked as a truck mechanic for a few months. I, on the other hand, just spent my days studying and paddling my way to a wave. Nights, on the other hand were different: They brought us back together, to celebrate our friendship and emancipate ourselves from despair. Nights were for movie theaters, night clubs, and girls.
Chapter 3
Stepping out of Aslam’s shrunken kingdom, having already adjusted to the local stench, I am welcomed by a fresh, but nonetheless, poisonous, afternoon breeze, under a perfectly blue sky, beatified with a few light patchy clouds, splendidly resting above my sooty city’s rooftops. A red flag with a green five points hallowed star dances frantically in the air, revealing both the presence and existence of an invisible Northern onshore wind that turns the shore to a mess –after all, I don’t regret being back. I smile at the sight of a possessed tree planted on the sidewalk, from which I get the confirmation that surf sucks today.
I take a deep breath and realize that I’m tired and hungry. My shoulders, sore, throb under the growing pull of heavy, slung around dirt covered boardbag, and, backpack full of surfing apparel –all courtesy of my sponsor (Malibu Surfshop) whose owner, tightfisted Philip, rarely grants me money and whose merchandise I always end up selling. Either the backpack weighs a ton, or I must be extremely tired. To alleviate the discomfort I arch my back, stretching both back and shoulders.
For a second, I am tempted to go and say hi to Marcos, see what he’s been up to. It’s been three days since I saw him last –a record. Marcos, by the way, is my traveling and surfing buddy, an extremely popular guy –I’d even say that everyone loves him… well, almost everyone. But instead of checking on Mr. Popular, I head home, along a row of cars parallel parked against the curbside, whose modest owners, unable to afford a garage monthly fee, have to trust a treacherous street and the man in blue with a missing arm, whom I, still, cannot spot. ‘Where is he?’ I wonder, for even his absence, in this land of nuances, is as suspicious as that snaky gaze of his that rarely misses a thing.
Throughout the country, men in blue, shady individuals that they tend to be, have become so by once daring to face a frightening administrative bureaucracy, corroded by corruption and useless redundancy, to obtain both a tag displaying their profession –Guardian- which they pins, at chest level, to their blue lab coat, and a highly sought after permit, where written in both official French and Arabic prints; as it ought to be in this self-respected francophone country; their full name, profession, and names of both district and street they are to be assigned to.
Licensed and dressed in blue, they blend with sidewalks, buildings, doors, and windows. Everyone in their respective neighborhood will know them; and they’ll know everyone while making a living by keeping spots for those who tip them well, running small errands, washing cars, and doing whatever it takes to fill their pocket with jingly change. Sometimes, they specialize in watching motorcycles; rows of them –mainly, small Brown or gray Peugeot 103s; and red Honda scooters. There is one for each street at least. They’re everywhere and wherever one would need to park a vehicle, in front of each administrative building, school, hospital, clinic, cinema, theater, youth club, and even beach. They just sit there and watch. Some say they’re the government’s eye, snitches reporting to the underpaid, always scheming to survive, therefore much disliked and distrusted law enforcement officers.
The truth is, men in blue, just like anyone else in this highly polluted North African modern Babylonia, where corruption rules and business under the table is primordial for wealth to trickle down from a sticky top to a bottom it hardly ever reaches.
As far as I can see, and as it has always been, today, it is bumper to bumper, as two rows of cars sit on each side of the street, right along its sidewalks, right in the middle of a city generously sprinkled with garbage and cloaked with misery. Now that poverty has moved in, everything seems old and dirty, making me feel slightly alienated and disconnected from these familiar surroundings, which in their most splendid of forms got to be deeply ingrained in my head so as to never be forgotten.
Walking towards the avenue where I need to make a right, I pass a building’s entrance that, just like everything else in five kilometer radius, revives unwanted childhood memories full of illness and frustration, of the French physical therapist my mom used to send me to, twice a week, despite the fact that it was too expensive, with the hope that the sessions would correct my posture ruined by years of fun with my inseparable sibling: asthma.
Asthma can be very costly, especially for those, who like my mother, don’t really know how to handle money. The ones with holes in their palms, vortexes through which fortunes are siphoned out, while they just smile and say “It’s not about money, just have fun and don’t worry about the rest”, inspiring me to strangle her and almost giving me both ulcer and aneurysm. How she could be so careless was a mystery I could never crack. This is “mighty Money’ I’m talking about.
Couldn’t she see that money shapes and runs our world? It has people running like mice in spinning wheels while performing all sorts of incredibly silly tricks, and that just to get their hands on some of that precious currency. Then, they when they get their greedy hands on it, it is just to spend it purchasing whatever it is they desire, want, and sometimes need. It could be anything. I could be physical therapy, or any other service available in that building, where one could find a doctor; an accountant; and let us not forget, three flights of stairs higher, a door, a gateway to sin, a quick escape to lust, the sort of door visited by lonely men, in search of pleasure or comfort, who once they knock, are welcomed by an maturely aged hostess who within the guidelines and protocol of Moroccan hospitality offers them tea and even homemade cookies. She would then proceed by introducing them to options, fees and the rest of the apartment’s tenants: relatively young women for rent.
This is a big city, a metropolis of great pragmatism. So no one will lose any sleep over this kind of business. If you’re offended look away, and if you’re interested, you know where they are. Bordellos, ancient institutions, as direct byproducts of social frustration are abundant in this town. There are more than four of them in my neighborhood. As for the religious and pious types, with their visions of fire and brimstone set upon the infidel, meaning almost everyone, I guess it gives them something to get offended by.
I turn right at the corner of the street, where the mini-hardware store is. The owner, a Berber who’s been here forever, always playing checkers by his store’s door, lifts his head and greets me. I cordially smile back and inquire “El Haj Labass?”, adhering to a simple and very common rule of sociability.
Eight steps further, between the bent tree and the grocer’s door, I make another right, entering the street and world I’d wished to escape to as a child, from as an adolescent; and now, the heart and center of a geographic tumor I dream of leaving behind.
I take a deep breath and realize that I’m tired and hungry. My shoulders, sore, throb under the growing pull of heavy, slung around dirt covered boardbag, and, backpack full of surfing apparel –all courtesy of my sponsor (Malibu Surfshop) whose owner, tightfisted Philip, rarely grants me money and whose merchandise I always end up selling. Either the backpack weighs a ton, or I must be extremely tired. To alleviate the discomfort I arch my back, stretching both back and shoulders.
For a second, I am tempted to go and say hi to Marcos, see what he’s been up to. It’s been three days since I saw him last –a record. Marcos, by the way, is my traveling and surfing buddy, an extremely popular guy –I’d even say that everyone loves him… well, almost everyone. But instead of checking on Mr. Popular, I head home, along a row of cars parallel parked against the curbside, whose modest owners, unable to afford a garage monthly fee, have to trust a treacherous street and the man in blue with a missing arm, whom I, still, cannot spot. ‘Where is he?’ I wonder, for even his absence, in this land of nuances, is as suspicious as that snaky gaze of his that rarely misses a thing.
Throughout the country, men in blue, shady individuals that they tend to be, have become so by once daring to face a frightening administrative bureaucracy, corroded by corruption and useless redundancy, to obtain both a tag displaying their profession –Guardian- which they pins, at chest level, to their blue lab coat, and a highly sought after permit, where written in both official French and Arabic prints; as it ought to be in this self-respected francophone country; their full name, profession, and names of both district and street they are to be assigned to.
Licensed and dressed in blue, they blend with sidewalks, buildings, doors, and windows. Everyone in their respective neighborhood will know them; and they’ll know everyone while making a living by keeping spots for those who tip them well, running small errands, washing cars, and doing whatever it takes to fill their pocket with jingly change. Sometimes, they specialize in watching motorcycles; rows of them –mainly, small Brown or gray Peugeot 103s; and red Honda scooters. There is one for each street at least. They’re everywhere and wherever one would need to park a vehicle, in front of each administrative building, school, hospital, clinic, cinema, theater, youth club, and even beach. They just sit there and watch. Some say they’re the government’s eye, snitches reporting to the underpaid, always scheming to survive, therefore much disliked and distrusted law enforcement officers.
The truth is, men in blue, just like anyone else in this highly polluted North African modern Babylonia, where corruption rules and business under the table is primordial for wealth to trickle down from a sticky top to a bottom it hardly ever reaches.
As far as I can see, and as it has always been, today, it is bumper to bumper, as two rows of cars sit on each side of the street, right along its sidewalks, right in the middle of a city generously sprinkled with garbage and cloaked with misery. Now that poverty has moved in, everything seems old and dirty, making me feel slightly alienated and disconnected from these familiar surroundings, which in their most splendid of forms got to be deeply ingrained in my head so as to never be forgotten.
Walking towards the avenue where I need to make a right, I pass a building’s entrance that, just like everything else in five kilometer radius, revives unwanted childhood memories full of illness and frustration, of the French physical therapist my mom used to send me to, twice a week, despite the fact that it was too expensive, with the hope that the sessions would correct my posture ruined by years of fun with my inseparable sibling: asthma.
Asthma can be very costly, especially for those, who like my mother, don’t really know how to handle money. The ones with holes in their palms, vortexes through which fortunes are siphoned out, while they just smile and say “It’s not about money, just have fun and don’t worry about the rest”, inspiring me to strangle her and almost giving me both ulcer and aneurysm. How she could be so careless was a mystery I could never crack. This is “mighty Money’ I’m talking about.
Couldn’t she see that money shapes and runs our world? It has people running like mice in spinning wheels while performing all sorts of incredibly silly tricks, and that just to get their hands on some of that precious currency. Then, they when they get their greedy hands on it, it is just to spend it purchasing whatever it is they desire, want, and sometimes need. It could be anything. I could be physical therapy, or any other service available in that building, where one could find a doctor; an accountant; and let us not forget, three flights of stairs higher, a door, a gateway to sin, a quick escape to lust, the sort of door visited by lonely men, in search of pleasure or comfort, who once they knock, are welcomed by an maturely aged hostess who within the guidelines and protocol of Moroccan hospitality offers them tea and even homemade cookies. She would then proceed by introducing them to options, fees and the rest of the apartment’s tenants: relatively young women for rent.
This is a big city, a metropolis of great pragmatism. So no one will lose any sleep over this kind of business. If you’re offended look away, and if you’re interested, you know where they are. Bordellos, ancient institutions, as direct byproducts of social frustration are abundant in this town. There are more than four of them in my neighborhood. As for the religious and pious types, with their visions of fire and brimstone set upon the infidel, meaning almost everyone, I guess it gives them something to get offended by.
I turn right at the corner of the street, where the mini-hardware store is. The owner, a Berber who’s been here forever, always playing checkers by his store’s door, lifts his head and greets me. I cordially smile back and inquire “El Haj Labass?”, adhering to a simple and very common rule of sociability.
Eight steps further, between the bent tree and the grocer’s door, I make another right, entering the street and world I’d wished to escape to as a child, from as an adolescent; and now, the heart and center of a geographic tumor I dream of leaving behind.
Chapter 2
Sure enough, I’m sucked by the shifting crowds, the hassle, the noise, the noise, the street… contrast and change. Once again, I am in Casablanca, the largest man-made shit-hole in Morocco, four million inhabitants and as many commuters: the Moroccan industrial capital; the economic heart of this blessed nation. A dump if you ask me, even that French quarter I live in, a city within another; ‘le centre ville’ as it is so pompously called, a standing symbol of colonialism, of the unchecked and unbalanced socio-cultural struggle that’s been gnawing at my world, massive chunk by massive chunk, from within, and from before I even had a chance to open my eyes.
There is so much hatred in me for this citadel of mediocrity that I perceive everything from the worst angle there is. There is a problem with everything, and there is no need to go digging beneath the surface to figure this out. No, no there just is no need to start an excavation mission to uncover the facts, layers upon layers of despicable truths, history told unfiltered to anyone who can remember and is depressed enough to listen –and as you can already tell, I am the perfect candidate.
An overly familiar miasma of wrongness hits me, without a second’s delay, as soon as I reached the outskirts of this industrial heaven and, managed to follow me all the way to that parking structure where I rent space for Belinda; my Yamaho 750, chromed blue, a beauty, bought her brand new. Belinda is my baby, my main and only mode of transportation, of escape. With her, I’m never caught in traffic jams, never late, never stuck, and more importantly never alone. She’s rusty from too much humidity and salt, but inside she’s still a beast. There is no telling how many times her and I got lost together, following uncharted trails along the sensuously winding north western African coastline, as far as the Mauritanian desert and, unfortunately, back to this sterile looking building, this fortress of dullness, a perfect example of all the things I am dying to escape.
The garage is a single story building with a steal galvanized roof stained by mold, raised thirty feet of the ground, resting on solid I-shaped beams, covering a dusty place with two huge openings, which are used both as entrance and exit, and which more importantly I am accustomed to finding locked after midnight –a great inconvenience with its share of tensions.
There is no saying how many times I’ve been heard pounding on those vertically sliding stealthy doors, making as much ruckus as required to bring Aslam -the dark skin giant who had emigrated from the Sahara desert to become a parking garage attendant- out of his deep and peaceful slumber and have him, grunt and push the door I’ve turned to some sort of awfully sounding drum open.
Aslam loves sleeping, I don’t. Therefore, we often go at, with gusto, throwing all sorts of insults, cursing our respective ancestors, verbally releasing both tension and anger, before I can park my bike and go home to suffer, staring my curse in the eye as it whispers horrifying premonitions involving my very grim future, until exhausted I am finally alowed to pass out.
As far as Aslam and I are concerned, I have to admit that our relationship hasn’t been as healthy as it could have, but given our inherent differences, there probably was no escape from the existing conflict between the desert’s giant, (with fresh memories of arid freedom and sandy vastness keeping him from suffocating in that improvised living quarter of his -a dark room inside a gruesome parking space,) and a claustrophobic and greatly confused urbanite, dying from his city’s madness, and fantasizing about distant places to discover and call home. Yet, somehow the sun would always bring along a truce during which we’d exchange greetings, just as we do today, and as if everything is and has always been fine.
There is so much hatred in me for this citadel of mediocrity that I perceive everything from the worst angle there is. There is a problem with everything, and there is no need to go digging beneath the surface to figure this out. No, no there just is no need to start an excavation mission to uncover the facts, layers upon layers of despicable truths, history told unfiltered to anyone who can remember and is depressed enough to listen –and as you can already tell, I am the perfect candidate.
An overly familiar miasma of wrongness hits me, without a second’s delay, as soon as I reached the outskirts of this industrial heaven and, managed to follow me all the way to that parking structure where I rent space for Belinda; my Yamaho 750, chromed blue, a beauty, bought her brand new. Belinda is my baby, my main and only mode of transportation, of escape. With her, I’m never caught in traffic jams, never late, never stuck, and more importantly never alone. She’s rusty from too much humidity and salt, but inside she’s still a beast. There is no telling how many times her and I got lost together, following uncharted trails along the sensuously winding north western African coastline, as far as the Mauritanian desert and, unfortunately, back to this sterile looking building, this fortress of dullness, a perfect example of all the things I am dying to escape.
The garage is a single story building with a steal galvanized roof stained by mold, raised thirty feet of the ground, resting on solid I-shaped beams, covering a dusty place with two huge openings, which are used both as entrance and exit, and which more importantly I am accustomed to finding locked after midnight –a great inconvenience with its share of tensions.
There is no saying how many times I’ve been heard pounding on those vertically sliding stealthy doors, making as much ruckus as required to bring Aslam -the dark skin giant who had emigrated from the Sahara desert to become a parking garage attendant- out of his deep and peaceful slumber and have him, grunt and push the door I’ve turned to some sort of awfully sounding drum open.
Aslam loves sleeping, I don’t. Therefore, we often go at, with gusto, throwing all sorts of insults, cursing our respective ancestors, verbally releasing both tension and anger, before I can park my bike and go home to suffer, staring my curse in the eye as it whispers horrifying premonitions involving my very grim future, until exhausted I am finally alowed to pass out.
As far as Aslam and I are concerned, I have to admit that our relationship hasn’t been as healthy as it could have, but given our inherent differences, there probably was no escape from the existing conflict between the desert’s giant, (with fresh memories of arid freedom and sandy vastness keeping him from suffocating in that improvised living quarter of his -a dark room inside a gruesome parking space,) and a claustrophobic and greatly confused urbanite, dying from his city’s madness, and fantasizing about distant places to discover and call home. Yet, somehow the sun would always bring along a truce during which we’d exchange greetings, just as we do today, and as if everything is and has always been fine.
Chapter 1
I come back. I always do. No matter how far I escape I end up returning. I have to, for her. Otherwise she’d die. She couldn’t take it… and I could never handle that, because, you see, I owe her everything and more. So instead of leaving, I extend my trips gradually, in the hope that she’ll get used to it. You see… she gave it all up to raise me. Yes, It wasn’t perfect, but I remember how hard she tried. And then, there’s that bloody curse, so I really can’t blame it all on her.
Eventually what has to happen will happen. I know that someday, I’ll have to leave. There’s a part of me that is missing, a part I am desperately trying to find. I am stuck with a void where my heart slips, over and over, out of habit, to linger on brighter possibilities and dream of leaving this whole mess behind. There is so much selfishness germinating inside of me I do not believe it can be denied. So, I feel sorry for her. But is it really my fault? After all, I’m just driven, like the rest of them, and maybe, maybe, she should thank her mother for that.
Meanwhile, day after day, I’m playing the same record. ‘I should leave. I should leave today.’ Then the reply comes, never missing its cue, and it goes like this: ‘Yes, I should leave, but some other day though. Not today.’
Eventually what has to happen will happen. I know that someday, I’ll have to leave. There’s a part of me that is missing, a part I am desperately trying to find. I am stuck with a void where my heart slips, over and over, out of habit, to linger on brighter possibilities and dream of leaving this whole mess behind. There is so much selfishness germinating inside of me I do not believe it can be denied. So, I feel sorry for her. But is it really my fault? After all, I’m just driven, like the rest of them, and maybe, maybe, she should thank her mother for that.
Meanwhile, day after day, I’m playing the same record. ‘I should leave. I should leave today.’ Then the reply comes, never missing its cue, and it goes like this: ‘Yes, I should leave, but some other day though. Not today.’
Introduction
Long ago, a man, in the name of passion, brought a curse upon himself and all his descendants. The man is my grandfather, someone whom I, in the naiveté of my insulated childhood, came to hold very high in the innocent world of my imagination. So that, for quite some time, awed by what I thought I was seeing through the prism of shear innocence, I accepted my grandfather as the one man I deeply wanted to resemble: a powerful man, respected and feared by all, a man in control –that was after all how I used to see him. Now that all of his children have failed to escape their lot, I hear that he’s lonely, sick, blind, and weak. Now that his name has been sullied and stripped of all the relevance it once carried in the heart of his countrymen, I hear that all he’s got left to show for is stubbornness -that same stubbornness that got each and every one of us in this mess in the first place.
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