Her face was heart-shaped, white, with pink cheeks. It was also the face of a boy. I shut my eyes and let my head fall onto her warm breast. A pillow of flesh, I said to myself. I’ve got my head on a pillow that’s pulsing with life. All I could think of was the cushion under my head, and how beautifully it calmed the pain in my temple. She buried her fingers deep in my hair, and I reached out blindly for her head, forgetting that it had been shaved. The hard short hairs tickled my palm. When I rubbed them the wrong way they stood up. Why did he shave off her hair and eyebrows? He must have been jealous. I licked the hard nipples. Then with delight I began to suck on her right breast, filling my mouth with it. I could feel the tight hard part in the middle of the softness. When I tried to do the same with her left breast, she laughed, squirmed, and covered it with her hand. She tries to direct me back to the right breast, and I keep insisting on the left one. The left breast must be very sensitive. It becomes a game, and soon she cannot bear to have either breast touched. We go on for a little while with the game, both of us laughing.
I’m ticklish on that side.
You’re ticklish on both sides now.
She laughed and pulled off her panties. Then with a smile she unbuttoned my fly. The blind dragon rose up and stood rigid in her hand. She smoothed it briefly from its head to its roots, and set to work rubbing it against the lip between her legs. The hairs of the black triangle there are as rough as those on her scalp. The dragon feels the roughness as he scrapes his bald head on them.
I want to go inside, but she wants only to rub. She squeezes it, chokes it, measuring its size at one end and the other with her hand. I pulled away from her. Then she let me inside and hugged me with her arms and legs. I imagined talking to my sex: There you are, dragon! Blind and bald. This is your first combat in Tangier. Fix it so she’ll never forget you. Be strong whether you like it or not.
It was Bouchra’s voice that awoke me. Get up, Sallafa! Are you asleep?
I sat up quickly. Has el Kebdani come back? I asked her.
Not yet.
I went out into the larger room. From there I heard Sallafa saying to Bouchra: Hasn’t the pimp got here yet?
I’m afraid they may have arrested them and taken them to the police station, with all the trouble in the street.
They can take them all the way to Hell, Sallafa said.
I went into the latrine. My sex was limp and stuck to my thighs. I came out and sat down with Bouchra. She seemed preoccupied, even sad. I watched her. Something was bothering her. Sallafa bustled in, she looked at me, smiled, and came over to me, leaning above me. Then she took my face in her two hands, and stroked it. Finally she gave me a resounding kiss on the lips, the way one kisses a baby. I smiled.
She went into the latrine and shut the door. I remembered the day in Aïn Ketiout when the girl gave me brown bread with butter and honey and put perfume on me and kissed my lips, and I told her I was leaving with my family for Tetuan. Where can she be now? It’s a different situation here with Sallafa. I looked at Bouchra, sitting dejectedly with her elbows on her knees and her head between her hands. The way she sat reminded me of the way my mother had sat after she had heard that they had caught my father. Presently she got up, went to the phonograph and put on a record. Oukkeddibou Nafsi it was, with Om Kaltoum singing. It made me think of Aïn Khabbès in Tetuan and the hashish-smokers and drunks at the café where I had worked.
The key turned in the door and I sat up. El Kebdani came in first, then Qaabil. They looked tired.
What news? I asked el Kebdani.
He turned down the volume on the phonograph.
It’s all over, he said. A lot of Moroccans are dead or wounded.
Qaabil went into the bedroom. El Kebdani sat down facing me. Sallafa came out of the latrine.
Where have you been? she asked el Kebdani.
We had something to do.
Why don’t you admit you went to a whorehouse? she said, laughing. You went to Seoudiya el Kahala’s. Or else it was Zohra el Hamqat’s.
Before el Kebdani could answer, Qaabil shouted: Are you going to shut that dirty mouth?
Whose dirty mouth? Yours?
She went into the bedroom. El Kebdani got to his feet.
Let’s go out for a little while, he said. We can come back later.
We went out through the other door that gave onto the cliffs and the beach below. The cold wind slapped my face. We lit cigarettes and stood there. The lights of the ships anchored in the harbour were brilliant.
I’ve got something important to tell you, said el Kebdani.
What is it?
Qaabil has agreed to let you work with us tomorrow.
Yes. That is important, I said.
But on one condition. You have to stay up here at the shack tonight and all day tomorrow. At least, until the time comes to go to work.
I was thinking: That’s just what I want. It’s a condition that’s fine with me.
To him I said: But why?
I’ll tell you why. Qaabil doesn’t know you yet, and he’s afraid you might talk to somebody.
And you? You think –
He interrupted me. No! But then, I know you. I told him about you, and that persuaded him. I said you were serious and honest and tough.
Good, I said.
You see, he’s had a lot of trouble with his cargadores. He’s sure the only reason he had this run-in with the Customs and the secret police was that he used new cargadores. Half the time it’s the police themselves who send out the cargadores to work with the smugglers. That way they find out where the work’s going to be done, what time it’s going to happen, and even what’s going to be moved in. The police give them three or four times as much as the smugglers do.
I didn’t know that, I said.
They feel protected, you see. After a pause he went on: Qaabil’s a good man. The only trouble with him is that he’s stingy. If you want to get what’s coming to you, you practically have to steal it from him.
I laughed.
He’s only generous with women. With girls like Sallafa, for instance.
We both laughed. Is he jealous of her? I asked him.
He knows she’ll open her legs to anything. Even a monkey.
And in spite of that he loves her?
That’s right.
But why did he shave off her hair?
He’s crazy about her. He cut off her hair and eyebrows so she wouldn’t go very far from the shack. Sometimes she’ll wander off and stay ten days or more, and he’s like a maniac the whole time.
Where does she go when she runs away like that?
She gets drunk and stays with friends. Where would she go?
Do you think she loves him?
He laughed. Yes, she loves him, he said with irony. Does a woman like that love anybody? All she wants is the cash. I’ve heard her say it straight out. One day I heard her tell him: You’re wasting your time with me. Look for another one to love, she said. Get it into your head that I don’t love you!
And what does he say when she talks to him like that?
What do you expect him to say? Either he doesn’t answer, or he threatens to beat her up. But I’ve never seen him lift a finger to her.
I’ve noticed. But in spite of all she says, he still loves her. He’s a strange one.
He thinks she’s worked magic on him.
And you? Do you think she’s got him under a spell?
I don’t believe in spells, he said. He loves her, and that’s all there is to it.
But how did he ever manage to cut off her hair?
He got her drunk, and then he put hashish in her tea. When she passed out he got to work on her with the razor.
And when she woke up?
She smashed a few dishes and swore she’d get even with him. But she’s like him. She won’t do anything.