crotch, her breath moved up along my belly, she began undoing my belt, I stepped back and pushed her away; she gave me a funny look, finally shame got the upper hand, I went out. The lady behind the bar sniggered âAlready?,â I didnât even turn around.
The street was deserted, I was a little disoriented, my heart was pounding. Today was vile. I thought for an instant of Meryem, then of Judit, as I walked to my hotel.
Tomorrow will be another day.
I tried to read For Bread Alone a little, without managing to, the images of Zahraâs sex inserted themselves between the book and me. They remained for a long time in the darkness, long after I had put out the light.
WHEN Ibn Battuta began his journey, as he was leaving Tangier headed east, in 1335, I wonder if he hoped to return to Morocco one day or if he thought his exile would be absolute. He spent some years in India and the Maldives, in the service of a Sultan who appointed him a Cadi, a judge, no doubt because he was learned and knew Arabic; he even married the Vizierâs daughter. When he left the archipelago, after traveling through a city where women had only one breast, he met a man living alone with his family on a small island, and envied him; he owned, Battuta said, a few coconut palms and a boat he uses to fish and to visit the neighboring islands when he wishes. By God, he says, I envied this man, and if that island had belonged to me, I would have settled on it till the end of my life. He ends up returning to Morocco, and I picture him ending his days in a little monastery for dervishes where he found peace, as he wrote the narrative of his travels, perhaps, or as he recounted to whoever was willing to listen his adventures beyond the seas. I donât remember any mention of prostitutes in his memoirs as they have reached us; Ibn Battuta had female slaves, singers, and a few legitimate wives he married in the course of his travels. But I confess that later on, in Barcelona, in the midst of whores and thieves, among the smoke of trashcans on fire, amid the truncheons of helmeted police, Zahraâs thin face and her cunt often returned to me like a regret, like one more sadness to add to the list, an ambiguous remorse, what sort ofman was I then, my youth thought, if I was incapable of enjoying a woman I had paid for and who was offering me, between her black stockings, her stubbly private parts; more than once I was tempted to slip twenty or thirty euros to the prostitute forever seated on the stoop of the building next to mine, in the Raval, and go upstairs with her just to rediscover a self-respect, a confidence in me that had mostly stayed behind with skinny Zahra and the laughter of her Madam.
Fortunately I was alone, that night in Tangier; I wouldnât have liked Bassam laughing at seeing me flee from the alcove with the green sofa after exactly two minutes. Men are dogs who rub against each other in solitude, only the hope of Judit gleamed in my misery even if, shy as I was, assailed by memories of Meryem, I would no doubt tremble before kissing her, shiver before going to bed with her, if the occasion presented itself, and the closer this mirage gotâjust a few hours separated me from her return to Tangier, as I stood in the early morning on my balconyâthe more terrified I became. The events of the last few days whirled in my head, the debris of nightmares reddened the dawn mist over the Strait.
The fire at the Group worried me, I wondered how long I had left before the cops arrested me.
I felt a little like a fugitive.
Despite my new job, the money I had as advance, I was at a loss, anxious, just as powerless as when Iâd been faced with Zahra the night before; the suit of age was too big for me. I missed a mother, a father, a Sheikh Nureddin, a Bassam.
Juditâs arrival was a real disaster.
Maybe I shouldnât have waited for her at the train station as a surprise; I shouldnât have made her dizzy
The street was deserted, I was a little disoriented, my heart was pounding. Today was vile. I thought for an instant of Meryem, then of Judit, as I walked to my hotel.
Tomorrow will be another day.
I tried to read For Bread Alone a little, without managing to, the images of Zahraâs sex inserted themselves between the book and me. They remained for a long time in the darkness, long after I had put out the light.
WHEN Ibn Battuta began his journey, as he was leaving Tangier headed east, in 1335, I wonder if he hoped to return to Morocco one day or if he thought his exile would be absolute. He spent some years in India and the Maldives, in the service of a Sultan who appointed him a Cadi, a judge, no doubt because he was learned and knew Arabic; he even married the Vizierâs daughter. When he left the archipelago, after traveling through a city where women had only one breast, he met a man living alone with his family on a small island, and envied him; he owned, Battuta said, a few coconut palms and a boat he uses to fish and to visit the neighboring islands when he wishes. By God, he says, I envied this man, and if that island had belonged to me, I would have settled on it till the end of my life. He ends up returning to Morocco, and I picture him ending his days in a little monastery for dervishes where he found peace, as he wrote the narrative of his travels, perhaps, or as he recounted to whoever was willing to listen his adventures beyond the seas. I donât remember any mention of prostitutes in his memoirs as they have reached us; Ibn Battuta had female slaves, singers, and a few legitimate wives he married in the course of his travels. But I confess that later on, in Barcelona, in the midst of whores and thieves, among the smoke of trashcans on fire, amid the truncheons of helmeted police, Zahraâs thin face and her cunt often returned to me like a regret, like one more sadness to add to the list, an ambiguous remorse, what sort ofman was I then, my youth thought, if I was incapable of enjoying a woman I had paid for and who was offering me, between her black stockings, her stubbly private parts; more than once I was tempted to slip twenty or thirty euros to the prostitute forever seated on the stoop of the building next to mine, in the Raval, and go upstairs with her just to rediscover a self-respect, a confidence in me that had mostly stayed behind with skinny Zahra and the laughter of her Madam.
Fortunately I was alone, that night in Tangier; I wouldnât have liked Bassam laughing at seeing me flee from the alcove with the green sofa after exactly two minutes. Men are dogs who rub against each other in solitude, only the hope of Judit gleamed in my misery even if, shy as I was, assailed by memories of Meryem, I would no doubt tremble before kissing her, shiver before going to bed with her, if the occasion presented itself, and the closer this mirage gotâjust a few hours separated me from her return to Tangier, as I stood in the early morning on my balconyâthe more terrified I became. The events of the last few days whirled in my head, the debris of nightmares reddened the dawn mist over the Strait.
The fire at the Group worried me, I wondered how long I had left before the cops arrested me.
I felt a little like a fugitive.
Despite my new job, the money I had as advance, I was at a loss, anxious, just as powerless as when Iâd been faced with Zahra the night before; the suit of age was too big for me. I missed a mother, a father, a Sheikh Nureddin, a Bassam.
Juditâs arrival was a real disaster.
Maybe I shouldnât have waited for her at the train station as a surprise; I shouldnât have made her dizzy
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