The Last Friend (7 page)

When I receive a severe emotional shock, my body reacts physically. My saliva dries up, I feel something bitter in my esophagus, and then I start hyperventilating. I have to sit down and drink some water. Mamed left me, coughing so violently he was staggering. I walked into La Valencuela, the ice cream parlor of our childhood, and asked for a bottle of water. The owner, who knew me, sat down beside me and asked if he should call a doctor.

"No," I replied, "Dial 36125, my house, and let me speak to my wife." I must have drunk a whole liter of water. I was still sweating, but my mouth was no longer dry. I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach, and I worried that it would come up and choke me. I was pale, my vision was blurred, and I shook as if I had a fever. Soraya arrived, and threw herself into my arms, in tears. "What happened to you? Did somebody mug you? There's no blood, you're not wounded, but you're as pale as a ghost. What happened? Talk to me. Call an ambulance!"

I stopped her from calling anyone. There was no point. It was just an emotional shock. It was not serious, just a house in ruins that had collapsed on me. I was full of dust, the roof had caved in on me, there were fallen beams. It didn't feel bad at the time. I didn't realize what was happening to me. Everything was collapsing around me. First some stones, then a whole wall, then parts of doors, after which I was buried in the rubble. It was like an avalanche of snow, like a fall into the void, surrounded by chunks of hard
ice,
and yet I couldn't find the ground. I heard words, but I couldn't call for help. I had the impression that some strong hand kept me from opening my mouth. So I continued my freefall into the void, while I sweated and my mouth became dry.

When Soraya and I got back to our apartment building, there was no trace of Mamed and his family. They had gathered their possessions and left. I noticed that there were traces of blood in some spit in the bathroom sink. The house smelled of medicine. My wife held me in her arms and cried. I did not want to speak, to discuss what had happened. In fact, I could no longer speak. I had lost my voice. I had only one desire, to record on paper what Mamed had said in those last hours, to write everything down, without worrying about order or logic. I spent the night writing. Soraya understood that I should not be disturbed. When morning came, I closed my notebook and slept until the afternoon. I must have lost at least a kilo. The sweating continued even during my sleep. I took a shower, put the notebook in the safe, and watched an old Hitchcock film about somebody falsely accused of a crime, played by Henry Fonda. Truth hung by a thread between light and darkness. Daily life seems simple, whereas in reality it is quite complex. All it takes is for appearances to become intertwined with emotions, and you become the center of an invisible, hidden vortex swirling you into a nightmare.

I knew the Hitchcock film by heart, and I let myself be swept away by the story, in which anyone, however common or anonymous, could become the victim of a bureaucratic error, a terrible injustice. It was my story.

The next morning, I got my voice back. I went to the cafe for breakfast as usual. I saw Ramon, who was worried by my state of mind. He asked so many questions that I ended up telling him what had happened. He was an upright man, warm and sensitive. He listened without saying a word. I saw the shock on his face. He could not understand what had happened. Neither could I.

A few days later, I felt the need to write to Married. I drafted several letters. I wanted to avoid sounding pathetic or spiteful. Above all, I knew it would be a mistake to try to respond in a legalistic, point-by-point way. He knew his accusations were false, but why did he feel the need to make them? What lay behind this sudden drama? What was he really trying to say? I wrote the following:

Dear Married,

Tell me about the real state of your health. Your cough sounds bad to me. But as a lung specialist, you know this better than I do.

You and your family left, vanishing from the apartment like shadows. I am not angry with you. I would just like to know what happened, and why you picked this particular evening to try to destroy me. I refuse to defend myself and to prove to you what you know better than anyone else. I was hurt more by your state of mind and body than by what you said. We know one another well enough not to make up stories, or to stage inquisitions in public. Our friendship has a strong foundation. Your accusations are unworthy of our long history together.

I will let you rest. When you feel better, call me, or tell me when I can call you. We need to be able to speak calmly so that everything is clear and unambiguous.

I embrace you as always.

Your faithful friend

Mamed's response took less than a week to arrive. A curt, brief letter arrived in a recycled envelope:

If you consider yourself my friend, you should know that I am not yours.

I want nothing further to do with you or your family.

I have examined the bills and done the accounts. You owe me a total of 34,825.53 dirhams. This is the difference between what you really paid for the renovation and decoration of the apartment, and what you made me pay. Deposit this sum tomorrow at the Ouladna Orphanage.

Do not call me again. Do not write to me again. I have put the apartment in Tangier up for sale. There you will find the computer and printer you gave me to try to buy my friendship. They remain in good condition. I barely used them.

Farewell.

I will always remember the first time I met Ali. He was wearing a tight white shirt and blue polyester pants, and he spent recess reading a book, not talking to anyone. "You should play, have fun. You can read at home tonight," I told him. "I don't like to play, I never have fun, and Id much rather read a good book," he replied.

It wasn't clear to me what the future would hold, but I had the feeling that this boy with the white skin and carefully combed hair would become my friend. I told him that he could follow me into the bathroom to smoke, but he refused, and gave me a little lecture: "My mother's brother just died from lung cancer, because he smoked a pack a day-American cigarettes. They smelled good, but they were fatal." I laughed. He smiled. I patted him on the back. He put his hand on my shoulder, and took a few drags of my Favorite. He choked, and swore he would never smoke again.

The following Friday, Ali invited me for couscous at his parents'. He lived in a small house at the top of one of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. I suggested he also invite Sam, who could get us into the Whiskey a Go Go nightclub, even though we weren't old enough and didn't have any money to spend there.

Sam was not a great student; he was smart, but lazy. He had a phenomenal memory. Once he read a page of the phone book and recited it without a single mistake. But when the teacher asked him to recite a Baudelaire poem, he garbled all the lines and gave up, telling the teacher it was too beautiful for someone like him. He came from a very poor family, and he worked nights at the club, which didn't give him much time for homework. He proposed a deal to Ali: "You write my essays, and I'll get you into the nightclub whenever you want. I'll even introduce you to pretty girls who aren't virgins."

Female virginity was our obsession. Girls willing to have sex were rare, and we knew about them only because they already had a steady boyfriend or were in their last year of school. They came to school wearing makeup and perfume. We watched them from a distance, making lewd comments. At the same time, we knew they were untouchable; they were French, and older than we were. One of them was named Germaine, and we called her "over the hill," as she had been dumped by her boyfriend and after that had sex with other boys. She had red eyes, perhaps from crying, but I was sure it was because she had sex all the time.

Ali pretended not to be interested in girls. I knew he was shy, and that he practiced what we called in Arabic "the secret habit." One day, at my house, I suggested a masturbation competition. The idea was to think about one of the beautiful high school girls, say her name, and go at it. Sam shouted "Josephine," our high school queen. I called out "Wanda," thinking of her flashing brown eyes. Ali remained silent, but he looked as if he was concentrating. "And you?" we asked him. "Who's your favorite?" He answered softly, "Ava Gardner." We were stupefied. Ali was aiming high. But after all, why not, it was an imaginary game. We turned our backs to each other, right hands grasping our penises. The idea was to ejaculate at the same time. Sam yelled insults to his imaginary sex object. I moaned. Ali screamed, "Yes, Ava, yes!"

This game was depressing, though, and we left deflated. We wanted relationships with real girls. Sam offered the services of the prostitutes at the nightclub where he worked. "How much?" Ali was as poor as I was. "Free," Sam replied, "It's a little favor they'll do for me. But it has to be in the middle of the day, when the club is closed." We chose the day and the time. When we got there, three women were waiting for us, not old, not young, not ugly, not beautiful, probably naked under their gray
jellabas
.
They were waiting for us the way they might have waited for the bus. It was clear that they had no interest in having sex with fifteen-year-olds, but they were willing to do it for Sam. Ali walked out, saying he would wait for us outside. Sam pulled out his penis. I closed my eyes, and threw myself at the other two, feeling them up underneath
their jellabas.
I didn't have time to do anything else, I ejaculated so quickly. Afterward, I didn't feel well. Sam had entrusted his penis to the other woman's mouth. I went outside to join All, who was reading a book by Anatole France.

Alain was the tallest boy in our class. He had broad shoulders, blue eyes, a studied gait, and a lock of blond hair that he played with to seduce girls. He wanted to become a movie actor, but the war in Algeria ended his youthful dreams. He came from a good Catholic family who liked Arabs, as long as they kept their distance.

Alain was my first real fight. He was discussing colonization with Ali, spouting all sorts of idiotic comments. He said that France was a great power bringing civilization to Algeria, a country of illiterate peasants. " Algeria is France. Our country will never leave Algeria in the hands of peasants who only know how to slit throats. My older brother is proud to be fighting there for freedom, and when he comes home, I'll go myself. If you don't like it, what the hell are you doing in a French high school? Why didn't you stay in your Koran school?
BougnouUl
"

I didn't know this word, but I knew it was an insult. Ali, shy and slight as he was, attacked Alain with a few tentative punches. Alain pushed him to the ground with one blow. Ali bled from his nose. I motioned to the racist French boy that it was time for a real fight. The students gathered in a circle while Ali was taken to the infirmary. Alain was much stronger than I was; I had blood everywhere. Sam pulled us apart. He could see I was going to be massacred.

All three of us were suspended for three days. The principal used the incident as an excuse to lecture the entire student body about events in Algeria. He sounded reasonable, presenting the issue objectively. Some students inferred that he seemed to be against Algeria remaining French. Two months later, he was called back to France. We never saw him again. Alain didn't wait to be drafted. He had already enlisted, and was serving in the Aures Mountains, where the fighting was particularly grim.

We were in twelfth grade. Before Alain left, he made up with Ali and me. We kissed each other on the cheek. While we were waiting for the results of our baccalaureate examination results, the son of the French consul told us that Alain was dead. We were distressed. Ali and I wanted to do something, go see his family, take flowers to his girlfriend, but we ended up doing nothing. Someone quoted Paul Nizan: "We were twenty years old, and no one can tell me this is the best time of your life." We heard Sam say with a little laugh that he was not interested in politics. At that moment, I decided it was time to get involved.

My uncle hamza was very French, in an old school kind of way. He spoke the language of Descartes perfectly, quoted the classics, and was an impeccable dresser. At the same time, he had an excellent knowledge of classical Arabic. He said he was a nationalist. I didn't know he was also a Communist. He explained that there were many positive aspects of Marxist doctrine, some of which could be applied in Morocco, to help the country out of its underdevelopment, to fight against the worst social inequities and the corruption of the government. He was convincing, opening my eyes to a new way of thinking. I talked to Ali about these ideas, who met them with more reserve.

I spent my first year at school in political meetings and demonstrations. This worried my father, who decided I should continue my medical studies in France. He had an animated discussion with my uncle, whom he accused of distracting me from my studies, of being an atheist, and of espousing ideas imported from Moscow. Hamza responded calmly, but my father remained angry. Having used up his arguments, my father insulted Hamza by calling him a
zoufri
,
because he was still a bachelor. Hamza seized the opportunity to explain the origin of this word. "Zoufri" comes from "worker." It was too bad that the petit bourgeoisie associated this with debauchery and vice, he said.

Ali was hoping for a scholarship to study in Canada. He was in charge of the Rabat film club, and sometimes I helped him. Ali made the posters advertising the films, and I put them up. I enjoyed his film-club meetings. He spoke intelligently and eloquently about films, their political role, and their importance in twentieth-century history. I admired him, and discovered a different person, not shy at all, confident and at ease before an audience. He had a particular passion for films directed by Satyajit Ray, an Indian he considered an artist with an international appeal. Ali thought that Ray's films also expressed Moroccan concerns and our desire for justice. Once he even went as far as to say that Ray was a Moroccan filmmaker, with unusual talent. Introducing
Pather
Panchali,
Ali quoted a phrase he had read about the film in a magazine: "They can pressure poor people, but they can't take away their talent." Ali argued that the exoticism of this Indian universe was a mirror distorted by geography but one that invited us to see our own exoticism: that is, our problems. Well-informed about all aspects of film, Ali never forgot the social and political reality of our country. He made the link between life and art, between the real and the imaginary.