Gates to Tangier
Mois Benarroch
Translated by Sara Maria Hasbun
“Gates to Tangier”
Written By Mois Benarroch
Copyright © 2016 Mois Benarroch
All rights reserved
Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.
www.babelcube.com
Translated by Sara Maria Hasbun
Cover Design © 2016 Alan Green
“Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Gates to Tangier
Part One | THE JOURNEY HOME
You cannot count the miles until you feel them. | Townes Van Zandt
✺
Madrid
FORTU/MESSOD
ISAQUE
SILVIA
ALBERTO
✺
Victor Hugo
✺
Barajas | ALBERTO
✺
SILVIA
ISAQUE
ISRAEL
FORTU
✺
Málaga | ALBERTO
FORTU
SILVIA
✺
Algeciras
✺
Tétouan
✺
Chaouen
✺
PARIS
Second part | GOING HOME
FORTU
ISAQUE
SILVIA
ALBERTO
ISRAEL
✺
ZOHRA
Think of me, but do not grieve, do not suffer, do not try to change your journey nor your destiny.
Esther Bendahan, La Vaca De Nadie [Nobody's Cow]
Part One
THE JOURNEY HOME
You cannot count the miles until you feel them.
Townes Van Zandt
“The son of a bitch!” she shouted, surprising herself with her own words.
An absolute silence fell in the office of lawyer Ilan Oz, at 7 Ben Yehuda, Jerusalem. The kind of silence that follows a terrorist attack. Everyone was seated around a large table and seemed to be in a state of shock, five adults trying to understand what was happening, what had befallen them.
“So that’s it. He has dropped a bomb on us.” continued Estrella, the mother. “After his death.”
“And if we don’t look for him? What happens if we don’t look for him?”
“According to the will, the money will remain in a locked account for five years. After this time, you can access it. The will just says that you should do everything in your power to find him.”
The youngest of the children, Israel, swirled his black yarmulke, which he wore from time to time.
“It’s just that—I don’t understand. He really wants us to look for his son?”
“That bastard,” said Messod, the oldest. “What does all this mean? He never told anyone about this?”
The mother looked at the lawyer. “He couldn’t have taken this secret to the grave?”
The lawyer became impatient.
“I don’t have any other information, this is what is written in the will. I can only speak to the legal parts, nothing more. I believe that at this point, the provisions are pretty clear. You can try to nullify the will, but I don't think it will be that simple.
"We should do everything we can to find his son," said David.
"Who should? Everyone? Or is one of us enough? Do five people have to put their lives on hold to look for his son?"
"I'm not going, I'm definitely not going to Morocco to look for my husband's bastard son. No way."
"Fine," said Silvia, "I don't think we're going to resolve this sitting around an office. I think we should go home and think, and if we have questions, we will call you, Mr. Oz. Thank you." She gestured to the others that they should leave.
"One more question," said Albert. "An important question. How much money are we talking about?"
"I have account numbers," said the lawyer. "But I don't know how much money they have. There is an account in Switzerland."
"There isn't much left," said our mother, "some six hundred thousand dollars, a bit less, that's all that is left."
"That's all that is left of the legendary fortune of the Benzimra family, less than one hundred thousand dollars each? That's all that is left of the fortune that could buy princes, ministers, and kings? Get any Jew out of jail?"
"That's how it is," said Israel. "The Ashkenazim got rich here, and we got poor. A generation more and we won't have anything left.
"That's already begun," said Albert. "It has already begun."
"Well, now is not the time. Thank you very much Mr. Oz. We will call you if we need you."
✺
"Where are you going, son?"
"I'm going alone."
"Do you see anyone?"
"I see you all, but you are very far away."
"And will you return?"
"I've already returned, I always return."
"Where do you return to?"
"The sea."
"Do you like it?"
"The waves don't leave holes."
"A rock is always waiting."
"I am the rock."
Madrid
FORTU/MESSOD
I'm always waiting for something to happen, I'm always waiting for something. And when something happens, I hope for more. I have spent thirty years far away from Tétouan and haven't gone back. It is always there, eternally there, a there that never ends, a word from the past, a word from oblivion, a word from memory. Thirty years I fled from that journey.
Alberto told me that he was there, that things were going well, that every minute was a wonder. But others, many others, spoke of the trash, how dirty everything is, that the whole city is garbage, that it is full of moros, as if the Moors had never lived there before. And maybe they weren't there, maybe they weren't part of our lives, despite the fact that they lived with us, by our side, always in tangential circles that did not penetrate our lives, they were in parallel universes, bringing us our necessities, Fátima who did the housework, bought oranges and fish. And we were always the same for them, the ones that moved the economy, the ones that provided employment. They miss us, they ask why we left, if we had felt bad, and I don't believe that's the case.
We didn't all feel badly, but some did, like Mamá and our grandmother; the women felt uncomfortable in the city, they spoke of Israel as something obligatory, always the women, the women are the ones that decided to go to Israel, the men, like myself, preferred something more known, Madrid, Paris. Who was right? I don't know, but when I came to visit Israel in 1977, I felt like it was too late for me, too late to change my life and leave Madrid, leave the smell of squid, the chatting over tapas, it was too late, I told my father, I told my mother. He understood, she didn't. She wanted me at her side, he would have preferred to be elsewhere in Palma de Mallorca; where my cousin wanted him to go to run or buy a hotel, or in Canada.
"This is not for us," he told me a thousand times.
"I understand, but at the least it can be for the next generation,"
"The nephews and nieces, yes, it could be better for them, but I see your brothers, and your sister, and none of them really feel at home, none are really doing very well, not even your brother Isaque, who was never very conventional. He's better in New York.”
I don't believe we would have been better in New York, I think. I think that we would be better off in Madrid, or Paris, or in Jerusalem, but New York – is that far? Not really. For someone born in Morocco, Jerusalem is much further. Don't you think so?
I said that last bit out loud, seated next
to my dear sister Silvia.
"What?" she said. "What am I supposed to think?"
"I don't know, I can't stop thinking about it, I can't stop thinking about what this trip is for. What are we looking for, a brother? A brother we know nothing about. Maybe we're looking for a dead man. Maybe he is already dead, people do die young, you know. Thirty years is a long time. And in Morocco, with all the drugs, you know how many get killed.
"I can't stop thinking about it either."
I asked the flight attendant for a whiskey, a full bottle and glasses with ice. I offered some to everyone. J&B isn't our favorite whiskey but we all like whiskey, and it was a good excuse to try to reduce the tension.
1974. The family dispersed: some went to Jerusalem, and I stayed in Madrid to finish my medical studies. After the dream subsided, the distance between us widened, languages began to change, his language, mine, the language of my brothers and sister. We spoke about things we didn't understand, that we couldn't understand, didn't want to understand, discrimination, racism, oppression....but my mother did not want to even hear about emigrating to another country, or anywhere outside of Jerusalem, although I proposed they move to Madrid many times.
"We are managing just fine here, money is not a problem," she said.
But a year passed and then another, and then it got to the point that the youngest brothers would have had more problems adapting to Madrid than if they had come directly from Tétouan.
"They have new friends," said my mother, "and they speak Hebrew. That is what is important. That we speak Hebrew."
Maybe she was right about that, but they didn't have many friends, this I know. I always knew. Many of our friends are here in Madrid...I don't know why I keep thinking about all this. Maybe to escape myself, from the situation that I'm in, from the death of my father, from the strange will he left us. I'm lost in my thoughts, and I always end up thinking about this strange brother, my half-brother. What will I tell him when I see him? What? Maybe nothing. I'm the one who should talk, the older brother. I should start.
"Here you are, Yosef, you, son of my father. I didn't know my father had another son, but he remembered you and named you as his heir, here, you see? Sign and receive one hundred thousand dollars, maybe a little more, and that's it, we're brothers, thank you very much, we're very happy to have met you but we're not going to see you ever again. You'll receive a check from our lawyer within a month or two, when we can arrange all the legal documents. That's it.
Maybe that's what will happen and maybe...what? I'll start to cry, I'll tell him that he is the substitute for Israel, the one born in the middle of the six-day war and dead in the Lebanese war. He was the only Israeli in the family, he loved the land and the language, the only one, and he died in Lebanon. And now you - you - Yosef, you are my brother, understand? My brother, but that's it.
That's how it all would go, or maybe not, maybe we would find his address and send him a letter. Letters are simpler, easier. Who am I? Forty-seven years old, what do I need a brother for now? I have a son. What do I need a brother for?
"This is what we are all wondering," said Silvia.
"So then...if we look for his address and send him a letter, he'll send a letter from his lawyer if he agrees. If not, we've done everything the will has asked of us, right?
"You haven't considered that maybe Papá wanted us to meet. To see him. You didn't consider that?"
"I don't know what he wanted. Papá is dead and we can't ask him anything. Or...I thought maybe you had spoken to him and he told you something about all this. He was closer with you than with us, and with Ruth. Not with me, not as much with me. Did he talk about this with you?"
"No. Never. Never specifically, but there were a few things he said that maybe had to do with all this, or at least now that hold a different meaning. Maybe I'm imagining things. A year ago he told me that if he died before Mom, we should take care of her, and insisted that he didn't mean financially. Sometimes he would tell me that in Morocco he had left behind much more than money. He said strange things that now have taken on new meaning."
The food came, Silvia asked if the food was kosher, and the flight attendant said that on this flight all meals were kosher. It was something to do on the flight. Meals on planes are more of a pastime than a source of nourishment. They come to fill the long hours sitting with nothing to do. But food couldn´t keep my thoughts at bay while I tried my best to open the box of food without letting anything fall on my clothes or on my sister's clothes.
There was still some whiskey, but the food was tasteless, not like the lunches on Air France to New York, and now we're going to New York. Isaque, our homeopathic doctor brother, would surely start to argue with me again about how I'm poisoning my patients, but the truth is that I'm giving less antibiotics to my patients, and less medicine in general. I find that 90% of them really would rather share their problems with me, than be cured of their illnesses, they don't much like medicine either and more than half of the drugs end up in the trash.
Being a family doctor is pretty nice, there is more time to talk with the patient, and sometimes you can get to know the problems of a whole family, which most of the time is very interesting. He is the only one who traveled to Tétouan since we left, and said that money wasn't an issue for him, but he wanted to come with us and see us again in this city.
And he's right, all these years since we escaped from the city...we all escaped as if we were Lot's wife and if we dared to look back we would turn into pillars of salt. What were we so afraid of? It is only a couple of hours from Madrid or Paris by plane, it could be over a weekend. This is what my wife kept asking me. In those days, when she loved me, she asked many times for us to travel over a weekend, and my answer always was, what do I need from Morocco now? We could go to Paris, to New York, to Madeira, Sri Lanka, India, Madras, Tehran, anywhere, anywhere that isn't Morocco. And it wasn't just me that responded like that, it was my father's answer, my mother's, and all of the brothers' as well. What did we lose there?
Everything, I say, we lost everything there.
"Are you excited to go back to Tétouan?
"These aren't the best circumstances. I don't know, all my life I have avoided this moment, but I know that one day I will have to return. Close the circle, end this chapter. I didn't think it would happen this way, that I would return to look for a half-brother I didn't know anything about.
I don't know if this is the right time, but apparently it is since we are all going.
Tel Aviv-Madrid-Málaga, Tel Aviv Madrid Málaga...
It´s the opposite direction from back in 1974. I was in Madrid back then, but I read a thousand times in Alberto's books about the morning when he woke up in Restinga and traveled to Ceuta. As if I were there. What do you remember?"
"I was happy. Don't forget that after Oufkir's coup failed there were many attempts to assassinate the king, and we were afraid that this would happen because it would have been very bad for us. It was a relief. I remember that I woke up Israel and took him in my arms, half asleep. Mom carried Ruth, and Dad talked to the driver, just as the sun was coming up over the ocean. It was incredible. At the border we were a little scared that something would happen. Papa bribed the police, we all said we were going on vacation to Palma de Mallorca.
We did finally get to Palma de Mallorca two years ago. Papá, Mamá, my husband and I, and Ruth also came with her husband, it was great. It was a shame you didn't come, it was a wonderful time."
She suddenly stopped talking, just when I thought she would give me more details, more sentences, memories of that familiar trip. She went quiet. In her head things were very clear, the house, the husband, the three kids, typical French stability. Everything is security, the creams are security, Paris, securité sociale, the house, the two cars, the husband and his life insurance, the children that would study in a good école, all was arranged, and I - what I am is an enormous mess
.
My marriage is a mess. No one knows anything about this, no one knows what is happening to me, and maybe they think that I'm living some grand romance, an endless love. Maybe they think that I don't need an inheritance, that my wife's money is enough, or the money from my work as a doctor.
Enough for what? To pay the mortgage on my house on Pedro Texeira, the big car, my daughter's computer, who knows what is enough? It isn't enough for happiness, it isn't enough to recreate the feeling of warmth on holidays, when we come back from the synagogue and smell the Easter dishes, the clean house, the women dressed in their finery. Maybe that's what gives life meaning, maybe just that moment, but what do I know about what my parents think, what they dream about, maybe they didn't know where to get the money at the end of the month either, or they thought that they wouldn't get out of the city in time and the king would be assassinated and everything would collapse.
For me, at ten years old, it seemed the most secure thing in the world, the clearest. I never heard my mother worry about money like my wife does, and we have more than they had at that time. We have health insurance and private doctors, and all the insurance in the world, and it isn't enough, we aren't happy, she has to go to the most expensive hairdresser, to the most expensive stores, I don't know where, I only see that every month we pay more and more on our credit cards and I can't say anything. It is her money too.
The house is not a safe place, it isn't safe like it seemed before, it was the very symbol of safety, the symbol of freedom, the place I could always go when the skies filled with thunderclaps. More money is less security, more opportunities, more obvious services, it exacerbates the fear of missing out on having the best. I hug myself. I want my sister to hug me, why don't I hug her? Why not? Just to put my arms around her, surely she would smile, would be happy, but I can't. I can't hug her, I can't give love.
I smile at my sister. Where is the love we had when we were children, the hugs we hugged, the fights we fought, the walks we walked, where are we now, why so far, Jerusalem, Paris, Madrid, New York, scattered across half the globe? For five hundred years our family lived in the same place, within two square kilometers, we went from house to house. But it was the same place for five hundred years, and now we are five thousand kilometers away from each other. Perhaps the world has gotten smaller. It is possible to go visit, but it is still far. I want to come to you to cry and talk about my wife, tell you how hard it is, but I can't get on a plane for that. Also, when everyone was close you couldn't talk about pain, and everything was forgotten. People didn't talk then, they forgot, and it was over.
Gates to Tangier Page 1
