Street of Thieves

by Mathias Enard

  Bassam was fidgeting next to the crumbs of his black forest cake, whose candied cherry sat prominently, abandoned, in the middle of the plate.

  I pretended to get impatient too, what the hell are they up to, what the hell are they doing, five more minutes and I’ll tell Bassam we should go drown our sorrows in beer somewhere—it was raining again.

  It’s well known, Spanish girls don’t go out in the rain.

  Suddenly I saw Bassam leap out of his chair; he craned his neck like a giraffe and gave me a few kicks under the table. I turned around; two young European girls had just come in; brunettes, with long hair worn down, bangs over their eyes, they wore harem pants, dozens of bracelets on their forearms, leather handbags and clogs made from the same material: Spaniards without a doubt, incredible. Actually no, it wasn’t all that incredible, but it placed me in a delicate position.

  “No, it’s not them,” I said to Bassam.

  He looked at me disconcertedly, sighing.

  The two girls must have entered the bakery for shelter from the rain.

  Bassam was irritated, he began wondering if I hadn’t been taking him for a ride; the fact that two Spanish girls came in as we were waiting for two other ones gave him the feeling that something wasn’t right. Young Iberians strolling in pairs in Tangier in this season weren’t as common as all that.

  An idea came into his head:

  “Go ask them if they maybe know Inez and Carmen.”

  I almost replied Who?, but remembered the names of my two ghosts just in time.

  “Maybe they’re in the same group.”

  He wore a challenging look on his face, a dangerous look; he was trying, above all, to test me, to find out whether or not I had lied to him.

  I sighed; I could tell him I was too chicken, he wouldn’t have understood. I saw him again the way he was the day before, cudgel in hand, beating the bookseller; I wondered what the hell I was doing there, in a tearoom with my pal the madman with the pickaxe.

  “Okay. I’ll go.”

  Bassam was literally licking his chops, his fat tongue slid over his upper lip to gather the last bits of chocolate shavings; he picked up the candied cherry and popped it into his mouth, I turned my eyes away before seeing if he chewed it.

  “Okay. I’m going.”

  Never had I dared to approach a foreign girl directly; I had talked about it a lot, we’d talked about it a lot, Bassam and I, during those hours we spent looking at the Strait; we had lied a lot, dreamed a lot, rather. He was looking at me with his naïve, brotherly look, I remember having thought about my family, my family is Bassam and Meryem and no one else.

  “Okay. I’m going.”

  I went over to the girls’ table, I’m sure of that; I know I said something to them; I have no idea in what gibberish, in what babble I managed to make myself understood; I just know—I had all the time in the world to think it over later—that I looked so sincere, so little interested in them with my story of Carmen and Inez, I so hoped they knew this Carmen and this Inez, that they didn’t suspect a thing, they answered me frankly, and it all happened in the most natural way in the world, and then they saw clearly, as they heard Bassam, as they saw Bassam’s face, that it wasn’t a trap but that there was indeed, in Tangier, a Carmen and an Inez, floating in the air like phantoms, and they were sorry for us, but it’s raining, you know, they said, it’s raining, and I laughed internally, I had a good laugh thinking that the rain, to which we never pay any attention, the rain can change a fate as easily as God himself, may Allah forgive me.

  LOOKING at them carefully, they weren’t all that alike, our two Spaniards; they came from Barcelona, their names were Judit and Elena, one was darker, the other rounder; both were students and were coming—a miracle—to spend a week in Morocco, on vacation, exactly as I had imagined, on their winter break, or spring break, I don’t remember anymore, but for me it was the Arab Spring arriving, let them send us nice students, that’s what all revolutions were for, girls you could picture wearing extraordinarily refined lingerie and who were inclined to show it, without annoying you with questions of family, religion, propriety, or good manners, rich girls who, if they took a liking to you, could allow you to cross the gleaming Straits with a single signature, introduce you to their parents absent-mindedly, this is my friend, and the father would rightly think you looked suspiciously dark-skinned but would nod his head as if to say well, my girl, you’re the one who decides, and we’d end up happy as God in Spain, home of black ham and the gateway to Europe.

  Bassam’s eyes said all this, all of it except for the pork, of course; he was looking at the girl in front of him like a passport with photos of naked girls instead of visas, so much so that Elena took her time arranging her T-shirt over her shoulders to hide her chest, a gesture that Bassam interpreted not as modesty but as provocation—she also pulled up her bra, annoyed by his looks, without realizing that her action called attention to these objects concealed from Bassam, that her slender hands on her own skin, grasping the strap, pushing aside the cloth to place her fingers on it, and then effecting a slight upward movement accentuated by the involuntary sound of elastic, was making sweat bead across Bassam’s forehead, who couldn’t tear his eyes away from her décolleté, those salt or rather pepper shakers blocked by the whiteness of the secret and yet so-visible cloth, and Bassam licked his index finger, unconsciously licked the tip of his index finger before crushing the crumbs of black forest cake scattered over his plate so they would stick better, without saying anything, devoted to his contemplation; Elena was trying to defuse this visual trap with language, she was gesticulating and articulating words to make the boy’s gaze rise twenty-five degrees and pass from her chest to her face, as is the custom with people who don’t know each other, but his desire, those breasts and that hand that got caught in the cloth inspired so much shame in Bassam that he was unable to look Elena in the eyes, since that would have been like looking his own thoughts, his being, and his whole education in the face, and all this kept him from both lifting his head and from truly enjoying, sneakily the way the Europeans do, the extraordinary spectacle, the excitation provoked by chastity when, despite herself, she contradicts herself, denies herself by unveiling, to the imagination of the one contemplating her, what she is trying to hide.

  Bassam was just more sincere than I, simpler perhaps; it’s a question of temperament, or of patience; I talked a lot with Judit; from time to time I even had a question for Elena; I was trying, I struggled, me too, to make out what she might be hiding under her blouse, discreetly, without insisting, I managed to keep my eyes meeting hers, but when she turned her head to address her friend or stare annoyedly at poor Bassam I indulged to my heart’s content, while still sadly acknowledging that the girl whom fate had placed opposite me was not the better endowed of the two, no matter, since from the start Judit seemed closer, more open, and more smiling.

  Very soon my three words of Spanish were not enough for conversation, so we switched to French; it was, I think, the first time I actually spoke with foreigners, and I had to search for my words. Fortunately Judit’s Catalan accent made it easier for me to understand. Bassam said nothing, or almost nothing; from time to time he would mutter something in an impenetrable idiom; when he found out that these two angels fallen from the sky were studying Arabic in Barcelona, he began speaking in classical Arabic, just like one of Sheikh Nureddin’s sermons, not counting the grammatical mistakes. He began asking Judit and Elena if they knew the Koran, if they had already read it in Arabic, and what they thought of Islam. He had to repeat each question two or three times, because he spoke quickly and articulated poorly, his eyes lowered.

  The night before we were taking part in a punitive expedition, with our cudgels, and tonight we were converting two foreign girls to the religion of the Prophet. Sheikh Nureddin would be proud of us.

  I found it hard to believe that they really were studying Arabic, that is, that they were interested in my country, my language, my cul
ture; this was a second miracle, a strange miracle, which might make you wonder if it could be diabolic—how could two young women from Barcelona be so interested in this language that they wanted to learn it? Why? Judit said her Arabic was very bad, and that she was ashamed to speak it; Elena launched into it more easily, but her pronunciation was like Bassam’s in Spanish or French: incomprehensible. I was a little ashamed; around us the guys who were watching their fiancées drink milkshakes and inhale deeply, eyes closed over their straws, weren’t missing a scrap of our conversation. They were definitely thinking to themselves: look at those two idiots, they’ve unearthed a pair of tourists and they’re talking to them about the Prophet, what assholes.

  I suggested we go somewhere else. Bassam whispered something to me in Moroccan, very quickly, very softly.

  It was nine o’clock, Elena suggested we get something to eat; I thought about the few dirhams that remained in my pocket, they could get me a sandwich, but not much else. Elena suggested we go to a little restaurant she had spotted in the old city. I must have made a funny face, Judit no doubt understood my embarrassment, she said we could go to a café instead, claiming she wasn’t very hungry, the tea had cut her appetite. Her friend seemed a little annoyed, Judit said a few sentences in Catalan. Bassam whispered something in my ear, with a conspiratorial air, why not take them to the Propagation for an Arabic lesson? I had to keep from breaking out laughing; I could picture Sheikh Nureddin finding two female Infidels in his mosque and Bassam half naked, explaining the exploits of Hamza to Judit and Elena. Not today, not now, I said.

  For my part, I could invite them to smoke a joint on the ramparts, I still had a little kif left from the night before, not very romantic—and what’s more they might get scared, refuse, turn against us, especially Elena, who didn’t seem very adventurous.

  We stood in front of the bakery for a good five minutes.

  Let’s go to a café, I said.

  Judit answered great, where should we go? Where are you taking us?

  Bassam hovered round us, shifting from foot to foot.

  Never had I thought so quickly.

  And the idea came to me:

  To Mehdi’s. We’ll go to Mehdi’s.

  Bassam opened his eyes wide, clapped his hands, of course, to Mehdi’s, you’re the best. He was overflowing with cheerfulness.

  Judit smiled, a wide, dazzling smile, and I felt like a hero.

  MEHDI’S was the only place in Tangier where two nineteen-year-old North African darkies like us could appear with foreigners without shocking anyone or bankrupting themselves, one of the only mixed places, neither poor nor rich, neither European nor Arabic, in town. During the day, especially in summer, it was a cafeteria where college and high school students guzzled sodas under trellises and creeping vines, and at night, in winter or when it was raining, there was a small room that was welcoming enough, with benches and cushions, where young guys, Moroccans and foreigners, drank tea. As I remember it, the decor was a mélange of touristy orientalism and utilitarian modernity, a few black and white photos in aluminum frames between the Berber rugs and fake ancient musical instruments. The place had no name, just the battered plastic sign of a brand of carbonated drink, everyone knew it by the owner’s first name, Mehdi—a very tall guy, thin as a reed, not very pleasant, but discreet and not meddlesome—who spent most of his time sitting on his own terrace, a Parisian-type cap on his head, smoking Gitanes. Bassam and I had gone there like everyone else, and had even once or twice bought a Pepsi for Meryem there in the summer.

  It was a bit far, we had to climb up the hill west of the old city, but it had stopped raining; Judit and Elena were happy to walk a little. I walked beside Judit and Bassam just behind with the other; I heard him speaking in Arabic and as soon as Elena said she didn’t understand, which was most of the time, he would repeat exactly the same phrase, but louder; Elena would reiterate her incomprehension, apologetically; Bassam would raise his volume bit by bit, until he was bellowing like an ox, as if the louder he repeated the words, the more chance the poor Catalan had to understand him. He no doubt thought that a foreign language was a kind of nail you had to drive into the reticent ear, with big blows from a vocal hammer: just as he had taught miscreants respect for religion with a cudgel, but this time with a smile.

  Life seemed beautiful to me, even with Bassam shouting in the night, and walking through these neighborhoods around the market I’d haunted a year and a half ago, this time accompanied by a girl, erased—at least for a little while—the whole series of ordeals and curses of the last two years and especially, so close and painful, the memories of last night, the faces of the bookseller and the loathsome parking lot attendant, by whom I would have liked not to be disturbed at that precise moment, I remember, I clenched my teeth, overcome by a real feeling of sickness, the power of shame, an echo almost as powerful as the previous night, the aftershock of an earthquake, so much so that my companion asked me, seeing my sudden shivering, if I was cold or if something was bothering me.

  Judit was observant and attentive; we had spoken of Revolution, of the Arab Spring, of hope and democracy, and also of the crisis in Spain, where everything can’t all be sweetness and light—no work, no money, beatings for anyone who had the gall to be “Indignant.” Indignation (which I had read vaguely about online) seemed a sentiment that wasn’t very revolutionary, the sentiment of a proper old lady and one that was sure to get you beat, seemed a little as if a Gandhi without plans or determination had sat down one fine day on the sidewalk because he was indignant about the British occupation, outraged. That would no doubt have made the English chuckle softly. The Tunisians had set themselves on fire, the Egyptians had gotten themselves shot at on Tahrir Square, and even if there were real chances of it ending up in the arms of Sheikh Nureddin and his friends, it still made you dream a little. I forget if we had mentioned, a few weeks later, the evacuation of the Indignant Ones who had occupied Catalonia Square in Barcelona, chased away like a flight of pigeons by a few vans of cops and their truncheons, supposedly to make room to celebrate Barça’s championship win: that’s what was indignant, that soccer would take precedence over politics, but apparently no one really protested, the population realizing, deep down inside, that the success of its team was, in itself, a beautiful celebration of democracy and of Catalonia, a Great Night that reduced Indignation to a negligible quantity.

  Judit also asked me about Morocco, about Tangier, about the ripples of protest; my answers remained evasive. When she asked me if I was a student, I replied that I was working, I was a bookseller, but that I planned on going to school. The profession of bookseller seemed to inspire respect in her. After all it wasn’t a lie. I was dying to ask one question, but kept it for later, out of shyness no doubt, or maybe more simply because I had heard Bassam asking it to Elena right behind me, in a slightly different form, however: Why had she chosen to learn Arabic, was it to convert to Islam? Fortunately, Elena hadn’t understood Bassam’s Koranic style, which could be translated as “do you want to come forward in Islam?,” I almost broke out laughing, but it was better not to hurt his feelings; after all, he should have been at prayers, and because of me here he was flirting with a Spanish girl; he could be forgiven his prophetic Arabic.

  Once we were at Mehdi’s, sitting on cushions around four teas, with no one else there except Mehdi himself, immersed in his newspaper, Bassam withdrew a little from the conversation, mainly for linguistic reasons: he was tired of shouting himself hoarse and we were speaking French, or at least something not far from it. I was showing off a little, saying I had learned the language all by myself from detective novels; Judit seemed to admire that. I’d like to be able to do that in Arabic, she said. There must be Arabic thrillers, Egyptian probably (I don’t know why, I imagined Cairo more propitious for weird stories of the lower depths). I thought maybe I could buy her a few, which reminded me of the previous night’s expedition to the bookseller’s; I said to myself that if I had met these girls
twenty-four hours earlier I’d have found the courage not to take part in that cowardly, useless expedition. But that was probably not true.

  Bassam was visibly impatient, he was tapping his feet and no longer smiled. He wanted to go back and I could sense, despite all the desire I had, that this tea couldn’t last forever; Elena yawned from time to time. Judit explained to me that they were planning on staying one more day in Tangier before going on to Marrakesh. One day, that wasn’t much. There are lots of things to see here, I said, before immediately regretting my sentence; I’d have had a lot of trouble making up a list.

  Fortunately, neither of them demanded to know what these marvels were, and ten minutes later, when it was Bassam’s turn to yawn so wide it could’ve dislocated his jaw, and when he seemed to have been hypnotized by the swaying of Elena’s breasts to the point of closing his eyelids, Judit gave the signal for departure. I didn’t insist on holding them back, I even agreed it’s time, yes, I have to work tomorrow morning. I explained that the next day I was setting up a table of books in front of the neighborhood mosque, I repeated the name of the mosque and of the neighborhood twice, à la Bassam, to be sure they had understood. Come see me if you’re in the neighborhood, I added for more clarity. It wasn’t very likely that they’d be “in the neighborhood” given the immense touristic interest of our suburb, and when all was said and done I wasn’t so sure I really wanted them to see close up the contents of my piles of books, but you have to understand that it was terribly frustrating to let them go like that, without suggesting anything to them, even indirectly. Judit and Elena were staying in a little hotel in the old city, we walked them back; I’d have liked to tell them the history of Tangier, of the citadel, the little streets, but I was absolutely incapable.