Gates to Tangier (5 page)

Mercedes thought that her son deserved a more cultured woman. Zohra seemed like a girl from a poor family who had won a scholarship to get to university. And she was right. She was an excellent student at her school, and that is how she got sent to finish her high school in Rabat. She later received a scholarship to study in Par
­
is.

Something was bothering Zohra, but she cou
­
ldn't pinpoint what it was. Something secret and incomprehensible. It was that feminine intuition that appea
­
red from time to time.

Marcel would have preferred that they hadn't met. He had said, "We're adults now. We don't have to mix up our family in this." But Zohra had insisted on accepting his mother's invitation, which had been extended almost every week in the last year.

Finally, Mercedes made the announcement.

"Lunch is ready, let's go to the table."

They went to the table. Zohra thought of Victor Hugo and his love for books. Above all she loved
La Légende des siècles
. She heard Marcel's mother saying that the
roti
hadn't come out exactly how she liked, and that she hop
­
ed they liked the food. The first dish was
quiche lorraine
.

"I'm sorry," said Zohra. "I don't eat pork."

"You keep kosher?" asked Maurice.

"Well, not exactly."

"We don't keep kosher exactly either, sure. If we have kosher guests then we eat kosher, but it has been years since we believed in it."

"She isn't Jewish," said Marcel.

"What?"

"A non-Jew that doesn't eat pork? She must be vegetaria
­
n, then?

Zohra hesitated for a moment, and wondered if she should tell them that she was Muslim. It didn't seem like Marcel's parents were very worried that she wasn't Jewish, b
­
ut they might care if they found out she were Muslim and not Christian.

"What is your last name?"

"Elbaz."

"Elbaz...I know many Jews named Elbaz. So your father must have been Jewish, and your mother not."

"Why don't we change the subject?" said Marcel.

"Why?" insisted his father. "What's the big secret? In this house we can eat what we want and be what we want. We're not prejud
­
iced against anyone. It’s the
goyim
that are prejudiced against us. My father went to a town in Sp
­
ain seventy years ago, and they had believed that Jews h
­
ad tails."

Marcel tried again to change the topic, to speak of current events and the euro.

"I think it is the end. When they change to the euro it will be the end of capitalism," said Marcel.

"You are always very optimistic."

"My theory, and I'm not an economist, is that the economy depends on the money that is under the table, the money that goes from hand to hand without anyone else coming and taking a part. When the Euro starts, the black market will disappear, and there will be a terrible recession. Also, they did a study and found that many sma
­
ll and medium-sized businesses aren't ready for the Euro and that it will break them, and in France everyone wants to break off. There will be a Nobel Prize for unemployment.

Zohra understood that Marcel was trying to avoid any discussion about her religion or origins, as if he was ashamed. Or maybe it wasn't shame, bu
­
t that he thought that they were adults and it was better not to involve his family in his decisions.

The
roti
in mus
­
hroom sauce came. She liked it.

"I'm not vegetarian, actually," she said, smiling. "I just don't like pork." She thought that would kill the topic.

"You know, during the Inquisition, in Spain you couldn't not eat pork. A woman who didn't like pork would be tried by a court of the Inqui
­
sition. There were many cases, they always thought they were dealing with a Jew. Now all the Jews eat pork. They can't be accused that way. They threw all the vegetarians and maybe the Muslims in jail, but in Europe even the M
­
uslims eat pork. In Europe everyone eats pork.”

Maurice began to suspect that she was a Muslim. That went along with the Elbaz name, which is also Arabic, there had been an Egypti
­
an minister named Elbaz. He didn't know if he should mention it
­
. What would his wife think? But he w
­
as also confused, that his son might marry a goy that didn't matter, but an Arab? They are ou
­
r enemies. We didn't leave Morocco just to have this happen, he thought.

"We are not planning on getting married," sa
­
id Zohra.

"Who said anything about marriage?” asked Marcel.

"I don't know. But I wanted to make that clear, because maybe your parents think that if I came to your house for dinner it is becau
­
se we want to get married, and it isn't."

"Are you also one of those women who doesn't want kids?" asked Mercedes.

Zohra smiled timidly, and despite the fact that it was only three and her shift started at six, she decided to use her work as pretext to leave aft
­
er lunch.

"I have to go by the house and then head to the h
­
ospital,
chéri
, it was really nice to meet you two. I really enjoyed the food, and no, I don't want dessert, I'm watchin
­
g my weight, and I really have to get going..."And without giving anyone any tim
­
e to react, she ran for her coat and left abru
­
ptly.

The house was silent. Marcel's father didn't know what to say. He believed she was Arab, but didn't know if he could be sure. Marcel's mother had also started to figure it out but didn't know how to react either.

"We don't plan to marry, just live together," said Marcel.

"Yes, of course, that's how things start," sai
­
d his mother.

"I knew it, I knew we shouldn't all get together, I knew it would end badly. It isn't any of your business, what I do."

"Well, it is and it isn't, son," said Maurice
­
.

"Well, that's over. I'm thirty-five and I decide who I live with. Anyway, I don't pl
­
an on marrying her, that's clear, we are registered in the municipality as lovers. They call it domestic partners.”

"Domestic partners!" said his father, repeating it again, as if the word did not exist. “Imagine! if your mother and I hadn't married, you woul
­
dn't have been born.”

"And?"

"Well, that's it. You wouldn't have been born. And if you hadn't been born we wouldn't be having this argu
­
ment, and you'd never get to say that to me, that you don't want to have children."

Marcel wondered a few tim
­
es if he should tell them that Zohra couldn't have children. Maybe that would calm them down, but maybe it would have the opposite effect. Instead of telling them, he blew up.

"What is the problem? That she is Muslim? That's the problem. If she were Christian you wouldn't say anything, right? Why does it ma
­
tter if she is Muslim or not? She isn't religious, she doesn't eat pork, but it is more because she doesn't like it than because of religion. She's a Parisian like any other Parisian, and she's named Zohra, that's all. So what?"

"Fine, fine, that's enough," said Maurice. "You are right. We are not judging you. But think about it. It is true, if she were Christian we wouldn't be reacting like this. Not because we are racists, but because
­
it is somewhat uncommon."

"Well, you can get used to it, because it is getting more and more common."

"What?" said Mercedes. "Does that mean that if you have a child it will be Arab? An Ar
­
ab child? This is why we escaped from Morocco? There, they ma
­
de our daughters marry Muslims, and here you are doing it all on your own. You see what happened to Sol Hatchuel, who died calling the name of God to not convert to Islam, and here yo
­
u are doing it all willingly."

"And here I thought that I came from a liberal and progressive family. A family open to all."

"I also thought that, but they don't seem to be that open to accepting us. Have you seen what they s
­
ay about Israel on television? We're to blame for everything again, as if nothing happened in the twentieth ce
­
ntury. They kill us, and yet everything is our fault."

"What does this have to do with Israel? What does my friend have to do with Israel? Maybe it is the
shoah
, with
Sol La tsadika
. Who else? Moshe Rabenu? All I want to do is live with her, go for walks with her, come back to her after work, make love, go on vacations, and for all these I need someone who understands me, and she understa
­
nds me. This country is secular, remember? Religion dies here, it is over. We are French, understand? She is French and that's the end of the story."

"This is what many Jews in Germany thought, before the Nazis."

"Ok, well I knew you'd bring up the Na
­
zis at some point, since we can't talk about anything without bringing them up. They killed a lo
­
t of Jews who considered themselves Germans, but who they de
­
fined them as Jews. When the Germans understand this, and us too, then we will understand that the Nazis really just wanted to kill people, and that's it."

"And yet coincidentally, when someone starts killing people they start with the Jews, like the Arabs do now. The misbehave and kill Jews, an Israeli prime minister makes a mistake and they kill Jews, Jews live in France and they put a bomb in our synagogue, or with Rosenberg...that's how the
goyim
are.”

"I see that you are in a very pessimistic Jewish mood, maybe because of the Intifada, or maybe every Je
­
w has to go through a phase where everything looks black. But I have good news for you. Zohra can't have children. You won't have a Muslim grandchild. Does that reassur
­
e you? I’m going.”

"I want a Jewish grandchild, that is what I want. It was enough that your brother married a
shajena
and that she takes him to church. She was secular, too, but now they go to church. A Benzimra, going to church. Who would believe it? My sister was right, we should have gone to Israel, nowhere else."

"Yes," said Maurice, "but then you would be living on a poor street in Beer Sheva, like her, and not in the best
arrondissement
in Paris."

––––––––

I
t was one of the strangest trips of my life. Could it have been anything else? Barajas is a worn-out airport, full of waiting areas, cafés, and hidden mediocre restaurants. Airports hav
­
e the worst restaurants, and the worst cafés. Customers aren't likely to come back, and the owner isn't likely to keep the business for more than a year or two. No one cares. Waiters never know who will leave a tip and who won't, every country has their own custo
­
ms, some leave 20%, Americans a dollar, French some worthless coins, Spaniards the change, Germans nothing, especially if the bill says service is included.

We arrived before Isaque's flight from New York, so we went to wait for his plane. The plan was to get on the first plane to Málaga, at 5pm. In the waiting room I saw someone who looked so fa
­
miliar. Too familiar. Could it be my dead brother?

Israel wandering through airports? The man with the suitcase looked just like him, but didn't only look like him, it looks just l
­
ike him right before he had died, as if he hadn't aged. I looked at him and he loo
­
ked at me, and we both did a double-take. He looked like someone who wasn't going anyw
­
here, someone who lived in airports, the wandering Jew, or the airport man, the man who gets on an airplane, arrives in an airport, makes a phone call, sits for a few hours in a restaurant with his lapt
­
op, and then gets on another plane, never sleeping in the same place he woke up and without any name. Or maybe with all the names.

He looked at me again, and approached to greet me.
­
I looked away. What could I sa
­
y? That he looks like a dead man? That he looks like my brother? He kept walking towards me. Finally I said "
Shalom
" to him in Hebrew. He res
­
ponded with “
Alejem Hashalom
”, the way Moroccan Je
­
ws do.

“We're traveling to Tétouan,” I said, as if it were obvious. It was obvious he was from around there, so it se
­
emed to make sense to tell him.

"Me too, through Málaga."

"What is your name?"

"Yosef."

Yosef? "Yosef what?"

"Yosef Israel. My last name is Israel.”

"That’s common name in Tétouan, I studied with an Israel in school, Alegría Israel I think...yeah, her name was Alegría."

"Really? That's my Aunt!”

"And how is she? When were you born?"

"1980, 20 years ago."

Ok, it isn't him, it can't be him, there's a ten-year difference.