Just beyond Naima’s place was a residence of a special type, where Issoufou, a thirty-year-old Nigerian lived. He had broad shoulders, a barrel chest, and a medium frame which obscured his full stomach. He was always smiling and elegant. He studied commerce at the international university in Marrakech. Mostly people just saw him leaving in the morning or returning at night. He gave off the impression that he was always busy with some urgent matter. His father, according to his neighbor, doorman, and assistant Aissatou, was a minister in the government of Mamadou Tandja, and he had been arrested after the military coup in February 2010. This coup was led by Colonel Salou Djibo and it forced Issoufou and the rest of his family to disperse across the world. They had money in a number of different countries, but complicated administrative issues prevented them from accessing those funds legally. Issoufou lived in the apartment alone while his fellow countrymen were crammed like sardines in tiny one-room apartments.
Issoufou didn’t go out until he was comfortable with how he looked; it seemed as if Georgio Armani himself had outfitted him. His suit was ironed with careful attention, and the collars of his white shirts were starched and pressed — ever since he’d bought a steam iron from Marjan, his neighbor Aissatou had been in charge of ironing his clothes. A gold necklace hung on his chest, his designer shoes were always polished, and he carried an expensive leather bag. Another gold chain on his wrist competed for attention with the gold ring on his finger. He always smelled of the thick Armani cologne called Attitude.
Aissatou, a twenty-five-year-old Senegalese man, lived in the next apartment. He first came as a migrant to Fes, the center of the Tijani Sufi order, which more than half the Senegalese Muslims had joined, and where the shrine of the great Sheikh Ahmed al-Tijani was held. He remained there until he could travel north to Tangier with the intention of crossing the strait to Europe. There, in Tangier, on the bank of the Mediterranean, the paradise of Europe appeared to be close, like a mirage. But without being able to navigate the strait, the dangers were plentiful. The Mediterranean formed the most violent borders in the world. A sea harvest of victims’ souls by the thousands — a gigantic graveyard of bloated corpses and sunken dreams. The living conditions in the nearby forests of Ceuta were unbearable. He never even thought of heading east toward Nador, where his countrymen were living in dire conditions in the Kouruku forest, dreaming of slipping into Melilla before finding themselves, at the end of their hopeless adventure, detained at the camp in the coastal village of Arekmane. The Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla formed the only land border between Africa and Europe. The guards on the Moroccan borders dedicated themselves to this illegal crossing point for African migrants with gusto, in order to gain the favor of their European associates. Racism against black people had been simmering, especially within the lower classes of the Boukhalef neighborhood, which was known as the center of the African community in Tangier. These sentiments made Aissatou completely rethink his idea of settling in Tangier. Instead he headed south in the direction of the Red City. Marrakech was the most African city of all the metropolises in the kingdom. There he sought out Issoufou, whom he’d previously met through a Tijani friend in Fes. The Nigerian advised him to move into the vacant apartment in front of his.
The apartment was owned by a Moroccan who now lived in Sweden. He had abandoned it a year before after a night of bunga bunga had been turned upside down. He had run group sex parties until an underage prostitute was murdered there, and the police raided the apartment and arrested the lot of them — with the exception of the owner, who escaped to his Swedish refuge with the help of a fat bribe.
Aissatou didn’t find it difficult to adapt to his new environment. He regularly went to the main mosque in Hay Saada, and his strict adherence to prayer allowed him to become well-known in the neighborhood and trusted by its residents, who found his broken classical Arabic and Senegalese accent to be charming. After finishing his prayers he would spread out his goods for sale — cell phones, wristwatches, and women’s accessories — in front of the mosque. He was comfortable with this new pace of life. He would frequent the dhikr circles at the Tijani group meetings by Bab Doukkala, and also spent time near Bab Aylan, Bab Ahmar, and in Hay Ksour, where he widened his circle of acquaintances as well as his commercial activities.
Sometimes he would stay with a Sudanese friend named Uthman, a tall and slender young man who was almost thirty. Uthman wore round glasses that filled him with a perhaps unwarranted dignity. His great-grandfather had been one of the sheikhs and a spokesman of the Tijani order in the Sudan, during the days of holy jihad against the English and Turks — the time of the Mahdist Revolution. He studied law in Marrakech before joining the doctoral faculty at Mohammed V University in Rabat. But for about two years now he has devoted himself to preparing his travel papers to move to England and to join his brother. Uthman Mustafa Sheikh lived between Marrakech and Rabat, with dreams of London.
Aissatou wasn’t shy about poking holes in his friend’s fantasy of lying on the banks of the Thames: “There’s no reason to hurry, brother. Do you think the British are burning with desire to welcome you? You’ll be met with accusations. You have been inflicted with all the curses: first you’re Arab, then Muslim, and on top of that you’re black!”
Uthman shook with laughter before answering him: “Fear not, clever one... It’ll be enough for them to know I’m a Tijani, and a friend of a Senegalese devotee named Aissatou who wanders the country where the Almoravids once ruled. Then their opinions of me will change completely.”
Bilal had ambivalent feelings toward his black neighbors. He would get fed up with Fatimata’s screaming. She was clearly incapable of speaking softly. Even the noisy presence of the Malians bothered him. He often complained to Farid and Said about the racket they caused.
“They all talk at the same time. It’s like they’re fighting,” Bilal told them.
“Those bastards have megaphones for mouths,” replied Farid.
Despite this, Bilal was quick to come to the defense of his black neighbors, proclaiming his disgust whenever people made inappropriate or openly racist comments. Farid and Said were in their midtwenties and both were unemployed. And since there was no way for them to frequent cafés with their empty pockets, they sought shelter with Bilal, sharing a pot of morning tea that his mother Umm al-Khayr prepared for him at ten. They shared loose cigarettes that they would get from the vendor in front of Café Original on the corner. They were envious of Issoufou, who was sometimes accompanied by girls, which they shamefully begrudged. Because of this, every time someone walked in front of them, the two repeated the song of those congregations in Jemaa el-Fnaa Square by the late Omar Meekhi:
One time Issoufou came home accompanied by a blond foreigner, one of those normally encountered in the tourist areas and who was clearly out of place in Hay Saada. She looked pleased as she followed him into the apartment. Farid and Said glanced at her, observing the scene with a disgust and envy that crushed their hearts. Farid spoke slowly while staring at the blonde: “That bitch is beautiful!”