I'm sure that it is worse in other countries, but I had never seen a mother hit her child in broad daylight, in front of everyone. Maybe they're ashamed of it. I traveled for a week with Marcel to Israel, and I never saw a mother hit her child, I even saw a child hit his mother and she didn't hit him back. The truth is it seemed a bit strange to me, but they told me that in Israel they don't hit children. Maybe that's why later they turn into soldiers that think that anything goes, even hitting children, being conquerors, and feeling like liberators. The truth is that Israel seemed like a really Moroccan country, a close relative of Tangier or Casablanca. I felt like Morocco would look like Israel if we invested a few million dollars. But maybe it is better that it doesn't look like Tel Aviv. I saw that they were building more and more buildings, as if the whole country was suffering from a mental illness they made them build without stopping, as if their fate depended on it. The problem is that I really felt at home, between the shuwarma stands and the unbearable Israeli catcalling, the Israelis who talk to me in Hebrew, as if I were one of them. I understood what they were saying to me without understanding a single word. I knew that I shouldn't respond or turn around and above all I shouldn't smile, every smile would cause me hours of regret.
The night fell before I knew it. I felt Paris already behind us. I felt relieved, as if a huge weight was lifted. Why do people let themselves live that nightmare? Perhaps I really won't go back. I think I won't go back, but I'll think about it a few more days.
We stopped at a gas station. Despite the fact that there were bathrooms on the bus, most passengers ran to the station bathrooms. I guess it isn't very comfortable to use the bathrooms on the bus. Later I went to the cafeteria and took my coffee to a table. A boy who had passed by my seat before sat down at my side. After the stress of having to travel had passed, I felt much more relaxed.
"I read that book," he said, pointing at the Roth book.
"I haven't yet, so don't tell me. I'm going to read it on the bus, or hope so at least.”
"I'm a writer."
"Great. And Jewish too, I'm sure?"
"How did you know? I don't have a Jewish nose. He smiled.
"Simple. Everyone who talks to me is Jewish. Boyfriends, friends. That's my life.
"And you don't like Jews?”
“No, it's not that. I'm not anti-Semitic. It isn't that I like or don't like them. My boyfriend Marcel is Jewish, and my best friend is Jewish, but I can't stand Israelis, I don't like what they do to the Palestinians.”
"I live in Israel."
“Just what I needed. I'm going to see my mother who is sick in Morocco, and I've found an Israeli who will tell me that it is okay to shoot kids.”
"I haven't said anything. I was also born in Morocco. I'm going to Granada now for a book reading there, to read my poems. The book is called A Corner in Tétouan.”
“Ah! And you are from Tétouan! Inta Diana, one of us.”
“Yes, from Tétouan.”
“And now you'll tell me your last name is Benzimra.”
“How did you know? Yes, its Benzimra, Moshe Benzimra.”
“Because my boyfriend is named Benzimra as well, he's from Tangier. Maybe he's a relative of yours.”
“Could be. But not a close one. My father was an only child, something rare in a Moroccan family, because my grandmother couldn't have more children. So as for close family, I don't have much. There are many branches of the Benzimra family in Tétouan, it is like saying Fátima, all the housekeepers were called Fátima, except one that was called Habiba. No wait, there was another one named Zohra.”
“Zohra, beautiful name. That's my name. And all the Jews had housekeepers named Fátima, huh? My mother was one of them.”
“I hope I haven't made you angry. I didn't mean to. And furthermore, if I was acting superior in any way for having had Fátimas in my house, my disastrous financial situation in Israel has definitely rid me of that. But yes, there were Fátimas, I don't know if it is that great to grow up with four Fátimas at home, but that's how I was raised, nothing can be done. I can't change the past. But I would like it if Morocco were the most developed Arab country in the world, that would make me happy, believe me.”
They called us from the bus, and he smiled. He didn't even ask if he could sit with me. Maybe I was a bit intense with him and he didn't want to bother me. Israeli, Moroccan, and he seemed like a sensitive guy. What is it with those Benzimra? Wherever I go I find them, maybe it is a really common last name among Moroccan Jews, but...that many?
I tried to read my book again, but my eyes were tired. Reading with the low light of the bus was difficult. I didn't understand the writer. I fell asleep. I slept for a long time, I didn't notice when the bus stopped in Bordeaux. I woke up at three in the morning, when the whole bus was sleeping. I stayed lying down, but couldn't fall back asleep. At six we arrived in San Sebastian. The whole city was asleep.
The writer waved to me. He asked me to stay with him in San Sebastian for twelve hours, to catch the next bus.
“I have to get there as soon as possible, my mother is sick.”
“But the bus is for people that aren't in a rush. Why didn't you take a plane, or a train?”
“I'm afraid of planes, and the bus is faster than the train, I'd have to wait a long time for the train. Maybe in this case I should have taken the plane and overcome my fears, but I didn't.”
“And maybe you don't want to see your mother before she dies?”
“What kind of question is that? Do you know what she is sick with? No, she won't die before I get there. I have some questions to ask her, important questions.”
“Right then, she'll live until you ask them. Have a good trip.”
We stopped in San Sebastian for half an hour, but I didn't get off the bus. Nor did most of the passengers. It was cold and dark and most of us wanted to stay in our seats.
After that it was Burgos, Madrid, and other cities I don't remember, some towns, twenty minutes of rest, thirty minutes, and in Madrid an hour to eat. Burgos was a city of boring buildings. We got to Málaga quickly. And I was reading this strange novel, and I couldn't completely understand what he was writing. I only made it through one hundred pages, and in Algeciras I forgot the book on the bus.
Does he really think Jews should go back to Poland? Or is that a joke? And then? What happens next? The Palestinians are going to think the Jews will leave their land to them, the Jews have a tendency of saying one thing and then the opposite in the very same book, and then the Arabs come and take what they like and make their plans and then say Jews are one way or the other. This town is full of ideas, above all from those that live in the diaspora, but nothing actually gets done.
It must take years of Talmud to get to that, the book that the anti-Semites love so much, a terrifying book for the non-Jews, a book that only a Jew can understand, that seems to be written in code, only those that are born Jews or convert can understand it. Assimilated Jews hate the Talmud. Can you imagine a book with thousands of authors, in which everything is up for discussion and every idea is disputed? But when I read some pages of the book I did understand what he was talking about, and thanks to him maybe I can understand the Jews. And a book like Roth's. But not the Israeli writers, who are completely different. They can't write with such free contradiction, because Judaism is a religion that was created completely in diaspora, although it says that Judaism doesn't make sense outside of Israel.
It is somewhat like a man who changes sex, when he is a man he dresses as a woman, and everyone believes he is a woman, they see the woman in him, but when he changes sex they all see a man who changed into a woman. Or it is like an amputated limb, when you see someone without a hand, all you see is the missing hand. The only thing they see in the Jewish diaspora is a lack of land, but now they have a country. The only good thing going for them had been their diaspora. Will Roth talk about that? I don't know.
It is fo
ur in the afternoon, and I'm going to the boat that will take me from Algeciras to Ceuta. Half an hour, a fast boat, the last fast one for today, I sat in a seat facing the sea, it is a relief to see water instead of roads. When I arrived in Ceuta I felt like something was about to happen, something important. The last time I felt this was when I met a friend who showed up with Marcel. I took the wheeled suitcase and headed to the center in a taxi. I wanted to sit in a cafe for an hour before going to Chauen, I thought about taking a taxi from the border where the taxis wait for hours in order to get the highest possible fare during the day.
I entered Las Campanas, a cafe that I vaguely remembered from trips I made with my mother when I was eight or nine. He was sitting right in front of me. I looked at him and felt a small shiver, his green eyes penetrated me like a laser. I felt like he was holding me captive. What the French call a coup de foudre, a lightning bolt, love at first sight. When the waiter came I couldn't get a single word out in Spanish, I tried French and Arabic. The man came up to us and explained to the waitress what I wanted. Then he sat down at my table.
I tried to hide my strange excitement. The last thing I needed at that time, before seeing my mother, was a man. Surely he was also a Jew. How could he not be? In any case I decided not to ask his last name. He was surely another Benzimra. His first name would be enough. He asked me first.
"Fátima," I said, I can't explain why I didn't say my real name. It was so strange, but he seemed so familiar, as if I had known him forever, as if we were cousins, or had been married for years.
“I'm Ali,” he responded.
Well, maybe he's Muslim, then, I thought. Or Jewish. Ali is also a Jewish name. I didn't ask. I didn't want to know more. He told me he was returning to Tétouan. He went to visit his grandfather's grave, that's what the Jews in that city do, but I didn't ask more. What would it matter, how could that be important?
He spoke about Madrid, his life in Madrid. He wanted to live in a smaller city, like Tétouan, but his daughter and his wife, from whom he was separated, were back in Madrid. He asked me to take a walk with him. I accepted. I asked the waitress if I could leave the suitcase in the cafe for an hour, and told him I was heading to Morocco later.
"I hope my boss doesn't find out. I'm here until eight, don't come after, because I'll be in trouble.”
We walked for a few minutes. Soon we were in the entrance of the hotel where he was staying. Even sooner, we were in his room. I don't remember ever having ended up in the arms of a man so quickly, even with Marcel it took twelve hours. We undressed. I had missed Marcel's hands in those last few weeks that we didn't see each other, but these hands were not of a stranger. His circumcised penis proved my theory that he was Jew, or a Muslim. But I didn't ask. I kept going without asking. He massaged my back for a long time, then we made love, it was like a lightning bolt, fast, but nothing like I had ever had.
My friends told me about men like that, the first man that really made them feel like a woman, not because the sex was amazing, but because everything was well-coordinated, everything was well-adjusted between us two, we came together, then slept as if we had fainted. I was very happy. I was afraid, it can't be, I told myself, this can't have happened, I'm traveling to see my sick mother and this happens to me? Or maybe it is a dream. Or the tension that was just so strong, the tension between us two.
I didn't know what to do, leave, leave my Paris phone number? But I didn't even know if I was going back.
Somehow, that encounter reinforced my decision to stay in Morocco. I don't know what these two things had to do with each other, but I wrote on a note:
"If it is meant to be we will meet again, and it will be even better than we can imagine."
And maybe we will meet in another life. It was already seven-thirty. I ran to get my suitcase at the cafe. I took the suitcase and grabbed a taxi for the border, then a taxi to my mother's house.
I arrived for my mother's last hours. That afternoon, she said her last coherent words.
"Thanks for coming."
"I have to ask you something very important, if they operated on me when I was little. When I was a year old.”
“Not you. Yusuf.”
“Who is Yusuf?”
“Your brother. They operated on him and then he died. Then came you. That was a long time ago.”
“You...never talked about him.”
“There are many things I never talked about.”
“How...who is my father?”
“Better that you not know. He died a month ago.”
“You mean you know who we was and never told me...”
“You never asked.”
“You said you didn't know where he was, you told me when I was twelve and I never asked again. Who was he?”
“He was a Jew.”
“His name?”
“That's all I can tell you, he was Jewish and he died a month ago. He sent me a present, it is there on the table. Inside an envelope. He remembered you and me. You can do something with that money.”
“Yes, take you to a hospital.”
But she was really sick. Taking her to a hospital wouldn't be easy, and could make her worse, if I took her to Tétouan or Tangier. My grandmother told me that some men had come and asked for Yusuf. She had also known the whole story and never told me.
“Who was Yusuf?”
“Your brother, but he died when he was one. A long time ago.”
“And who were the people that came?”
“That I don't know. I think that your mother worked in his house or something like that, and later a man in a suit came and your mother signed a document saying that Yusuf had died.”
“But Yusuf didn't die. I'm Yusuf. Me. Zohra.”
“My dear, I understand that your mother is very sick, but you know that you are a woman, a very beautiful woman, you can't be Yusuf.”
I went back to my mother's room, but she was already in a coma. She couldn't tell me who the man that came was. I took her hand, saying, "It's me, Yusuf. Right?" and she gripped my hand with more force, as if what I was saying was what she never wanted anyone to know, and now I knew...
She died two days later, a blind woman, with nothing, amputated, a life of suffering.
After the burial in Tangier I took the envelope and the money and went to the French hospital in Tangier. I gave them my CV. The doctor accepted me immediately. He said I could start work the next day, but I asked him for a week to make arrangements. I called Marcel and told him I was going to stay, for at least a year.
"Do you know what the last thing my mother told me was?"
I thought about that sentence a million times the last few days, maybe it explained my relationship with Jews. But everything was a haze, I knew that I would have to look for my father, my dead father. The question was only how, and when. And I would have to look for his children. I have brothers and sisters who are Jewish.
“Before you continue, there is a woman that called for you, called your apartment. I went by there looking for a book I left in the apartment. It is a woman that lives near my parents, also named Benzimra, she says that your mother worked in her parents' house and wants to talk to you. She left a telephone number, 4556878. And what did your mother say?”
“My mother said that my father was a Jew. That he died a month and a half ago.”
“That explains everything.”
“No, Marcel, no. It explains nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
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Gates to Tangier Page 12
