Gates to Tangier (8 page)

He hadn't known that my father had di
­
ed, but maybe he felt something. He asked me if something had happened. Thirty years ago he went to Tangier, then they emigr
­
ated to Israel, lived in Haifa. I knew he married an American and then went to London, then the United States, and that he sold clothing in Miami. Their family had always been in the clothing business, as well as doctors.

They say that the first Benzimra that came to Tétouan was a healer, his sons were tailors, and th
­
en from tailors came doctors...He called me and told me that his sister had died in a car accident three years ago. I had played with her as a child too, we had all played together. I asked Alberto but he didn't remember anything. Yes, Sananes, he remembers something, but he doesn't remember their faces, well, he was ten when they left, and two years are a lot at that age. I always remember more than Isaque, who is older than me, or maybe we remem
­
ber different things.

"W
here is the entrance to our house? Where is the door to the sea?"

"A wall of rocks is blocking it.

"He told us we shouldn't pray to the gods of rocks, and now they only thing left of our temple is stones."

"Our punishment is to pray to the rocks."

"A rock closed off the sea, the sea cannot save us from death, it can't save us from our lives."

"Where is the key that opens the door?"

"And where is the entrance to the Ten
Sefirot
? W
­
here are its ashes?

"The door has also turned to stone, and there are no keys to open the stone, we scream but the stone doesn't hear."

"Before we dreamed it would turn into stone, now we cr
­
y because the dream came true, we dream that stone turns into sand, but the stone turned into the death of a son before his father.

––––––––

A
lgeciras, a port with a city beside it.

Thou
­
sands of Spaniards and Moroccans pass through the city on a daily basis in opposite directions, and turn circles in
­
the port, the main street, buildings for the port workers, a
tapas
bar where I sit and write on my computer. I order a plate of calamari and a Russian salad, and think about the Moroccans that get in a dinghy to try to get here. And after they get here, if they don't die on the way, the road is still long: inspections on the buses, in the cities, in the metro stations.

They come from all over Africa, even from China and the Far East, they come to Tangier and lo
­
ok for opportunity, then they spend their Saturdays and Sundays in cafés and bars and sell pirated discs. Once I invited one, a black guy, to sit with me, I invited him to drink something, and bought the latest by Serrat, in La Coruña. He was afraid to talk, he told me he was Muslim, from Somalia, and was afra
­
id to say anything about himself. But he did say that preferred to marry a woman from his country, and not a Spaniard. He dra
­
nk a Coca Cola, thanked me, and went on selling his CDs. He spoke to me in Spanish and French.

Maybe, just maybe, my brother Yosef also passed through here loo
­
king for freedom in Europe, to escape miserable Morocco, like we did in 1974, the whole family heading to Israel. In the end we could say the word Israe
­
l freely, but may not that freely because it was still Franco's country, and there were no relations between Spain and Israel. Maybe Yosef came through here and traveled to Madrid and then Valencia and then to Marseille, ju
­
st like we did years before, him in search of freed
­
om, and us escaping the land where we were born and where our grandparents were born because the Jews were done.

The King's ministers, friends of my father, told us they were done. What was done exactly? The Moroccan Jewish community. It was over, the e
­
nd was inevitable. Like Queen Isabella before her Jewish helpers, telling them that it was a decision she had to make, that the Jews ha
­
d to leave Spain.

Five hundred years and we ar
­
e here in Spain again, sometimes a Spaniard, who knows you have Jewish ancestry, will tell you that they need more Jews in Spain, that it is a shame that they were kicked out. "We miss our Jews," an airport employee once told me. Yes, Poland also misses their Jews, but when we were there they murdered us in droves and threw us out, and when we’re leaving on our own they still throw us out, but that case, a little less. Or there was that Spanish minis
­
ter that asked the American treasurer, during Franco's time, what he could do to bolster the economy, and was told: “Get yourself a million Jews.” Jews move the economy, and if they say there is too much Jewish influence in America, well, look at their economy, it gives the Jews freedom, it supports Israel. And what do they get in return? The freest country in the world, and the richest, and the country with the most millionaires. Maybe it is worth it to let the Jews have their influe
­
nce?

Maybe it is a little exaggerated to say that the Jewish lobby decides American politics, but if that is the case, why not? Why would that be so bad? What is so bad about a democratic country in which the best people make the rules? And if the Jews are the most intell
­
igent, why can't they be the ones that decide? This is what is going on with me. Why are they such idiots in Israel? And maybe they aren't, things are going pretty well in Israel, maybe there aren't so many Nobel Prizes in Economics and Physics, but it is a country that that has achieved what Jews never co
­
uld before, it is mediocre above all. In its soci
­
al legislation, in its human rights, in its highways, everything is more or less average, not great but not bad, better than African or Arab countries but worse than all of the developed countries. The second world. Why do we always criticize ourselves, expecting to be like the richest countries?

"What are you writing so intensely?"

Isaac sits down at my table after a short walk through the city.

"Thoughts, nothing interesting. Did you wal
­
k around? Is there really nothing to see?"

The waiter comes to our table.

"What would you like?"

"The calamari here is wonderful," I tell him.

"Ok, a plate of calamari and a beer." A
­
s the waiter leaves, he says to me: "I thought you kept kosher."

"True, I do keep kosher, but when I am in Spain I eat calamari. I know that I won't be able to stop myself, they're too good. So I make an exception."

"I think when Dad was around you were more religious. Well, to each his own, I don't keep kosher. But I did go every week to the Portuguese Synagogue in New York, on 33rd street.”

"I went, but not all the time. The one who really seems to have changed is Fortu. Death changed his life, he sold all the
nesej
wines he had, and he wears the
tefillin
every day, he even does the
tefilla
every Saturday, for an hour and a half."

"To each his own."

My brother's calamari came and I ate three from his plate, and ordered another plate from the waiter. The plat
­
es were big, but when it comes to calamari I'm insat
­
iable.

"You can keep writing, I won't bother you," s
­
aid Isaque.

"It isn't important anymore, not at all. I'll shut thi
­
s down and keep going at the hotel. I was writing that maybe our brother came through here, on the way to Europe, years ago. What do you think happened to him?"

"I think he died. I have this feeling that he is dead, I don't know why. And I think that Papa knew it, but that he wanted us to travel together to find him, he wanted us to kno
­
w that he had existed. Otherwise, he would have checked himself, where he was, before dying. He was healthy, and he could have traveled himself, he could have talked to Fátima."

"Maybe he did."

"When?"

"He traveled many times to Ceuta to manage the houses he rented, before selling them for nothing. Maybe he went from here to Tétouan."

"He couldn't enter Morocco, they could have arres
­
ted him for having taken out money illegally in 1974."

"Yes, but none of that mattered after awhile, many people went back to Tétouan."

"That's true, but not many took out as much money as he did, and had all kinds of illegal businesses with the people here, and we still have so
­
me people over in Tangier, you know? Here too, on the Mediterranean side, he had all kinds of business partners, it is complicated. I don't know if we'll ever see that money, Papa told me that the King wanted the land by the see and that's why he could never sell them, there were always bureaucratic issues.”

Silvia and Fortu arrived, looking like they h
­
ad just fought. They still looked angry. I ate the last calamari from the plate and drank the beer.

"That's what you're eating?
Terefa
," said Fortu scornfully.

"To each his own," said Isaque.

"Sure, but you could try a little harder, in the year that Papa..."

"Fortu, don't tell us what to eat. In Israel I always ate kosher, while you, here, ate everything.

"Fine, fine. When does the boat leave?"

"Within the hour, we'll get there at eight, a little late, but what can we do.”

"W
here are you running?"

"I want to go back to see the mountain where I was born. I'm running to find myself again, one la
­
st time.”

"And will you make it?"

"I can run, my lungs are open, my breat
­
hing is normal.”

“And will you find yourself again?”

"Yes."

"And what do you see?”

"I see that the boy I was is no longer a boy, the tee
­
nager that wouldn't grow up is no longer a teenager, they are both wrinkled old men, with skin that scares me. I know that I'm seeing myself, but my past has changed.”

"The past cannot change."

"That's what I thought, but it keeps changing. Every time I visit my past, it changes. And that scares me, much more so than the future.”

"You have to live in the present."

"The Jew doesn't exist in the present. He only exists in the past or the future."

––––––––

I
t all happened quickly, so much so that I almost can't describe it. In less than an hour we kn
­
ew where Fátima was. We arrived in the early afternoon, and went immediately to the cemetery, climbing to the grave of our grandmother, Simi Benzimra. There we met a Jew from the city who we didn't kn
­
ow, but he had known our father and our family. He didn't know about Fátima, but he did know that our cousin Simi Benchimol, the wife of Isaac Benzimra, was living on the main street, Mohamed V. They're from another branch of the Benzimra family, not ours. Or maybe if we are related to them, you would have to go back six generations or more, to the beginning of the nineteenth century.

He told us that Isaac worked for Minhha at the
Tefila,
and that we could find him there to ask about Fátima.

"And why are you looking for her?”

"My father left her something in his inheritance, and we want her to know."

"How strange! I've never heard of inherit
­
ances being left to
Fátimas
. What a novelty.”

"She was their parent's
Fátima
as well, so maybe they felt something special for her.”

"Yes, could be, anything could be." The Jew had a malicious look on his face, as if he knew something that we didn't, but I preferred not to get into it
­
. After I said what I said, my siblings unders
­
tood that this would be why we were looking for Fatima. It was better not to have to explain further.

My cousin's husband was in the synagogue. All the Jews that could go went, because otherwise it was very hard to find ten to form a
minyan.
The community had been limited to less than one hundred Jews, and under those circumstances there was no goo
­
d reason not to come to
Tefilá
. He invited us to dinner.

"I'm sure Simi will be very happy to see you."

Simi looked at us for a few moments before she realized we were her cousins.

"You are so grown up!" She was older than o
­
ur oldest brother, Fortu, so for us she had alw
­
ays been the oldest cousin, almost the same age as our aunts and uncles.

"All together! What a surprise! Come in, come in.” She was still standing at the door to her house, in shock.

"I hope this isn't an imposition, coming by so suddenly."

"Don't be so polite! Of course it is no imposition, we will put on four more potatoes and tha
­
t's dinner for everyone, how could it be an imposition? And what brings you all to Tétouan? Not that you need a reason, a year ago even Tio Samuel came, I never thought I would see him again. He is eighty-six years old. But there is always a reason.”

"Papa died, and..."

"Really?" Simi began to cry. "Ay, my dear uncle..."

"Yes, that is why we have come. He asked us to find Fátima, his parent's Fátima. Fátima Elbaz, we thought that maybe you could tell us whe
­
re to find her.”

"Isaac, you remember Fátima? Many
Fátimas
wor
­
ked with Jews, remember? Twenty years ago, or more, what would have happened to her? She went to work with the Azancot, or Benacot, Azancot or Benacot, what were they calle
­
d? Your uncle left her an inheritance, unbelievable! He was very sensitive, my dear uncle.”