was six in the morning. I thought maybe she was right, better that this remain a wonderful and inexplicable memory.
I woke up very early, and at six my suitcases were ready. I paid the bill and went to look for a taxi to the port. Suddenly I headed back to the reception desk. I asked if anyone had left me a message. I thought maybe Fátima had changed her mind and lef t me her telephone number. And if she had, what would I do? Could I really fall in love with her? A Jew and a Muslim? Could we ever have a relationship? Maybe it would be possible with a Christian, but not with an Arab.
I couldn't find any taxis at that hour. I decided to just walk to the port. It was a twenty-minute walk, the whole city was just a few minut es walking. In the street I saw the cafés sta rting to open their doors. The doors opened like tired people who could scarcely open their eyes, before the men threw themselves on their coffees and croissants, espressos and cappuccinos. I found one that was already open and got a coffee. They told me I still had 10 more minutes walking to get to the port that a fast boat would be leaving at seven.
“You'll get there before eight, and I'll still be here in Africa.”
“Maybe I'll take the slow boat. I'm not in a rush, and I want to experience the journey.”
"Ok fine, there are people that like to live on the water, others that like to walk on the water. I prefer to be on land."
When I arrived they told me there were only fa st boats until ten o'clock, so I got on the seven o'clock one. The sea was very calm. I thought about traveling to Sevilla to se e an old school friend, Pedro Enriquez. An arch itect and a poet. I calculated that we would arrive in Sevilla before midday, that I could stay until nightfall and take the last Talgo, to get to Madrid before twelve.
I got on the bus at Alge ciras port headed to Sevilla. On the seat opposite me was a French book. It was a Philip Roth book that I had read in Spanish. I opened it and read the dedication.
To Zohra.
Love is freedom.
Love is tenderness.
Marcel.
ISAQUE
T wo days later we traveled to Tangier. We flew to gether to Paris, then I continued on to New York. She would go home. I would go somewhere under the sun. I have lived in Madrid, Paris, Jerusalem, London, and now...I don't know where home is anymore. I don't recognize the streets around me.
For years in Jerusal em they would ask me for a street next to my house and I didn't know where it was. I knew where the Yehuda, Naftali, and Dan streets were, but two streets over and I forgo t all the names, the same in Madrid, Balmes, la Castellana, La Gran Via, some of the main streets. I kno w how to get to my house. The other streets re mained unknown names or were at least difficult for me to place. What are street names, anyway? I heard there’s an island where the streets don't have names, I sh ould go live there. Paris, Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Avenue de Ternes, Pereire, I lived there a few months, Cap ucines, Opera, Champs Elysées, London, Regent, Park Crescent, Hendon, Oxford, Teixera, Orense, Príncipe de Vergara, as if I had been a tourist the whole time. In New York it is easy to rem ember the numbers, street numbers make more sens e, Bowery, Canal. As if in all those places I had only been in a hotel on the main street, and th en never gone back. Manhattan, the center of the world, I was at the center of the world. Always a tourist, everywhere, tomorrow if you put me in Casablanca it would be the same, in Sevilla or Tel Aviv, I only see people, coming and going, running, they're expelled from their countries, they con quer countries, they make war, they die and get ri ch, they lose their fortunes, or get even richer, or don't even have enough to buy bread, or they eat to o much, but none of them know what they are doing here, with the exception of the mystic, who wants to go to another wo rld, at least knows that he or she
I woke up very early, and at six my suitcases were ready. I paid the bill and went to look for a taxi to the port. Suddenly I headed back to the reception desk. I asked if anyone had left me a message. I thought maybe Fátima had changed her mind and lef t me her telephone number. And if she had, what would I do? Could I really fall in love with her? A Jew and a Muslim? Could we ever have a relationship? Maybe it would be possible with a Christian, but not with an Arab.
I couldn't find any taxis at that hour. I decided to just walk to the port. It was a twenty-minute walk, the whole city was just a few minut es walking. In the street I saw the cafés sta rting to open their doors. The doors opened like tired people who could scarcely open their eyes, before the men threw themselves on their coffees and croissants, espressos and cappuccinos. I found one that was already open and got a coffee. They told me I still had 10 more minutes walking to get to the port that a fast boat would be leaving at seven.
“You'll get there before eight, and I'll still be here in Africa.”
“Maybe I'll take the slow boat. I'm not in a rush, and I want to experience the journey.”
"Ok fine, there are people that like to live on the water, others that like to walk on the water. I prefer to be on land."
When I arrived they told me there were only fa st boats until ten o'clock, so I got on the seven o'clock one. The sea was very calm. I thought about traveling to Sevilla to se e an old school friend, Pedro Enriquez. An arch itect and a poet. I calculated that we would arrive in Sevilla before midday, that I could stay until nightfall and take the last Talgo, to get to Madrid before twelve.
I got on the bus at Alge ciras port headed to Sevilla. On the seat opposite me was a French book. It was a Philip Roth book that I had read in Spanish. I opened it and read the dedication.
To Zohra.
Love is freedom.
Love is tenderness.
Marcel.
ISAQUE
T wo days later we traveled to Tangier. We flew to gether to Paris, then I continued on to New York. She would go home. I would go somewhere under the sun. I have lived in Madrid, Paris, Jerusalem, London, and now...I don't know where home is anymore. I don't recognize the streets around me.
For years in Jerusal em they would ask me for a street next to my house and I didn't know where it was. I knew where the Yehuda, Naftali, and Dan streets were, but two streets over and I forgo t all the names, the same in Madrid, Balmes, la Castellana, La Gran Via, some of the main streets. I kno w how to get to my house. The other streets re mained unknown names or were at least difficult for me to place. What are street names, anyway? I heard there’s an island where the streets don't have names, I sh ould go live there. Paris, Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Avenue de Ternes, Pereire, I lived there a few months, Cap ucines, Opera, Champs Elysées, London, Regent, Park Crescent, Hendon, Oxford, Teixera, Orense, Príncipe de Vergara, as if I had been a tourist the whole time. In New York it is easy to rem ember the numbers, street numbers make more sens e, Bowery, Canal. As if in all those places I had only been in a hotel on the main street, and th en never gone back. Manhattan, the center of the world, I was at the center of the world. Always a tourist, everywhere, tomorrow if you put me in Casablanca it would be the same, in Sevilla or Tel Aviv, I only see people, coming and going, running, they're expelled from their countries, they con quer countries, they make war, they die and get ri ch, they lose their fortunes, or get even richer, or don't even have enough to buy bread, or they eat to o much, but none of them know what they are doing here, with the exception of the mystic, who wants to go to another wo rld, at least knows that he or she
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