Hmad drank whiskey with Gerard, and his body became a little loose, which made the sex easy. Hmad let Gerard do whatever he wanted to his body. His fingers were magical, arousing all the titillating tingling in Hmad’s backside. The old sensations that he had hidden for years bloomed once more. His mother had provided him with a deep unconditional love, and because of this, he wanted to save his body. So he hadn’t shared it with anyone before Gerard. When he was in the oasis, he used to think that one day he would love a man with blue eyes. Gerard’s eyes weren’t blue, but he was blond with green eyes, and he liked that too.
Gerard wanted Hmad to change careers and work as a drag queen at his house. Gerard hosted three parties a week — for both gay tourists and Moroccans. Hmad didn’t fully understand what it meant to be a drag queen. But Gerard explained to Hmad that he would prepare him for this thrilling assignment himself, supervising his makeup and arranging things. Hmad was delighted. Finally, he had found love and work that he actually wanted, and on top of it all, a job which required him to dress as a woman. From his understanding of what Gerard said about his new job, it would allow him the opportunity to be the most beautiful of women three times a week.
Thus began his new life: spending the day sleeping in his room and in the evening cutting a path across Riad Zitoun through Arset el-Maach to Jemaa el-Fnaa. In front of the Koutoubia Mosque he caught a taxi to Gueliz. He arrived at Gerard’s house at eight, and prepared himself for the evening’s soirée. The drag queen makeup took a very long time. Three hours of preparation — of doing his eyelashes, whitening his skin, and then applying makeup to the rest of his face. After this, he would dress in an evening gown and circulate among the guests. Most of them were tourists, both male and female, some of whom would secretly slip cash into his bra. He understood that these parties were successful because of him, and that Gerard was paying him welclass="underline" a thousand dirhams a night. He sent three hundred dirhams to his mother and saved the rest. He no longer thought about bringing his mother to live with him, but he had started to fantasize about living with Gerard. Oh, if only it were possible for him to become his housewife. To look after everything in that house, from the cleanliness of the rooms to the dishes in the kitchen; from taking care of the plants in the garden to pampering Gerard’s body. That house was heaven, and he dreamed every day of living in it. Gerard loved him and Hmad knew it was just a matter of time before he would ask him to move in. Hmad wanted to leave his room in Riad Zitoun and dreamed nightly of crossing the chasm between Riad Zitoun and Gueliz.
He thought about all of this as sleep began to overtake him at dawn, on the very day after he had met Ibrahim and Ali. He had responded to their greeting without even knowing them. He recognized their faces, having encountered them by chance here in the neighborhood more than once. It seemed like they were on their way to prayer at the mosque, thought Hmad. I want to go to the mosque too, but God will not accept me. I don’t think it’s possible for someone like me to go through the door of the mosque. He sniffed his perfumed body and thought: I’m not unclean, so why would God punish me for this inclination which He Himself created in me? There were many things Hmad didn’t understand about faith, and because of this, he left the matter for a later time — when he would go on the Hajj. God would forgive him as long as he submitted his sins before Him and did not advance further into sin than where he already was. He was not overtly concerned with questions of faith — with the exception of the Hajj.
Hmad wanted to walk around the Kaaba with the other pilgrims one day. To throw stones at the devil and shout joyfully: “Here I am at your service, O Lord!” The phrase rose up in his mind as the room filled with the fragrance of Meccan incense; Riad Zitoun had become the way to Mecca, and he saw himself in white clothing entering into the Kingdom of God, just like the others. He used to dream of the day when everyone would call him al-Hajj Hmad. This dream had been forcefully unleashed once again, ever since he had surrendered to the temptation that had overwhelmed him after he’d set foot in Marrakech. Lately, these bouts of temptation had grown in frequency. So he had started to visit the graves of the marabouts and the pious saints, until he finally found protection in the mausoleum of Sidi Bel Abbès, the holy helper of the poor and sick. Nothing would heal his heart, though, except a visit to the prophet’s grave and circumambulation around the Black Stone. He knew that the way to Mecca would open for him one day, for God does not shut His gates in the faces of good-hearted people. Hmad told himself that this dream would come true one day. He knew that things happened with time, and that the time for the Hajj would eventually come. His imagination was wandering toward Mecca when sleep finally conquered him.
Ibrahim and Ali woke up, then went back to watching Hmad’s window, and to the questions regarding his secret late-night job.
“He said he’s a waiter. Leave him alone,” Ibrahim said.
“A waiter that comes home at five in the morning?” Ali countered.
“It’s Marrakech, brother! There are places that never close.” Ibrahim rolled his eyes.
“But he isn’t working in a cabaret or a nightclub. He said that he’s a waiter in one of the foreigners’ houses, and there’s no respectable house that keeps its doors open until five in the morning.”
“We won’t get anything out of this scam. Hmad is from Chleuh country, far away from here, and no doubt he’s as inexperienced and naive as the rest of his people in Ouarzazate,” Ibrahim argued. “He really could be just a waiter.”
“I am almost positive that he isn’t just a waiter. This guy has a secret behind him that we need to figure out. Let’s follow him tonight and find out.”
Ali and Ibrahim ultimately agreed to follow Hmad when he headed to work and to return only when they had solid information. They went out into the alley to try to borrow a few dirhams for food while they waited for him. They ran into Mubarak, who was an unlicensed tour guide, but who was smart and eager and not burned-out like them. He supplied them with twenty dirhams. They bought two sausage sandwiches from Doukkali, the owner of a grilled-meat cart, and sat with Aouicha, who made tea right on the ground. Aouicha had worked as a prostitute before her beauty withered and her value in the city’s flesh market collapsed. She had not produced any children. When she retired, she set up shop on the ground preparing porridge in the early morning and making tea throughout the day. Ali and Ibrahim asked her about Hmad the Chelh, and she replied: “He is a well-mannered man who doesn’t talk to anyone. He drank tea at my spot two or three times and did not utter a word. He is just a wet-behind-the-ears Chelh who lucked out finding work as a waiter at one of the villas.”
“I don’t believe that he works as a waiter,” Ali told her.
“And why not? He seems to be clean like a waiter.”
“Exactly — the problem is his cleanliness. He seems to be cleaner than necessary. He has a strange kind of style. It seems more like he is an employee or an assistant at a pharmacy... something like that. What if he’s a cop?”
“And what would an undercover cop be doing in our stinking alley?” Aouicha challenged.