As if Fatima had heard what was going through my mind, she said unexpectedly, ‘What could create excitement in this kind of investigation is the possible relationship between black metal bands and the Islamist groups.’
‘That would be playing games with no connection to the truth,’ I said.
She then asked me to stop wasting the little time remaining before her departure talking shop. I did as she asked and dropped the subject. She urged me to take care of myself, to remember my yearly tests, especially my prostate exam, and to watch my blood pressure. She wondered why I didn’t devote more time to writing, and why I didn’t go and see her in Madrid. ‘You need a city that has real nightlife,’ she said.
She also asked why nothing in my relationship with Layla was clear.
‘What do you want to be clear about it?’ I asked.
‘I mean everything,’ she said. ‘And most of all, whether it’s a love story.’
‘How do you want me to know? I know there’s a story and I know more importantly that I am very comfortable in the relationship.’
She asked if I dyed my hair. ‘Never,’ I said angrily.
She adjusted her attitude and said, ‘You have some grey hairs here and there.’ She put her finger on the places she meant.
I said, ‘If I’m still alive and my hair hasn’t gone white, I will come to Madrid.’
She stood up to go to the boarding gate and hugged me quickly, as if she were getting rid of an annoyance. As she was collecting her things, she said nervously, ‘Don’t ever say “if I’m still alive”. It’s a phrase that upsets me.’
On my way back from the airport, I was anxious because of this lousy goodbye. I found myself engaged in a remote argument with Fatima, about the way she implicitly blamed me for something I had not done. What did she want me to have done? I should have betrayed my wife with her on the first day. Had I done so, our relationship would have ended perfectly many years ago. But we did not do that and left the matter open to missed opportunities. Meanwhile, for each of us this friendship grew stronger and even more complex. What did she want me to do? Was it possible to build something on top of ruins? Even Al-Firsiwi could not do that. I ended this angry monologue with a torrent of choice swearwords that I addressed to myself and Fatima for obvious reasons, and then to Al-Firsiwi for no obvious reason.
3
I called Ahmad Majd to ask him about an apartment Layla had bought in a project he was developing in Rabat. She had requested minor changes inside the apartment, but the work was not yet completed. While discussing this issue, Ahmad asked me if I was interested in valuable information regarding a new real-estate scandal.
I said jokingly, ‘Does it concern your group or the competition?’
He did not laugh and told me that he preferred to discuss the matter in person.
I went to Ahmad’s huge construction project in the suburbs of the capital. It comprised luxury apartment buildings, social housing — to justify the very low price he had paid for the land — and an area of villas. All of this was built on the site of the old hospital and the social work facilities of a number of ministries. The land was close to the city’s green belt, where building was forbidden. But the state went inside the green belt with its construction projects, citing their social role. Layla had bought a small apartment in one of those new buildings, putting all her savings into it. She would also be putting half her monthly salary into it for the next ten years.
I wondered whether I too should buy an apartment in the same building. This would bring us close to a semblance of family life without the restrictions of living under the same roof. I liked the idea and immediately discussed it with Layla. At first she seemed distracted, but then she showed an overwhelming enthusiasm that made me embark immediately on a property venture with unforeseen consequences.
It was the first decision I had taken for Layla’s sake. Previously, we had talked about the things that would help us build a relationship, when Layla had admitted she missed terribly some elements of daily life in our liaison, for example bringing a gas cylinder and installing it nervously like someone not handy in such things; or my preparing breakfast or using the wrong toothbrush by mistake; or her shouting at me because I had left a wet towel on the bed, knowing very well that that upset her. There was also the issue of socks. She hated men’s socks even if they were clean, in fact, even if they were brand new.
‘Do you sometimes leave the fridge door open?’ she asked me.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And the wardrobe door and the kitchen tap.’
‘My God, those are things I could kill over!’
I told her that we’d better avoid sharing anything that might lead us to a bloody end. She then said something that surprised me. She said that what delighted her in our relationship was that it had been a source of amazement from the first day. She wondered how she had met me and how we could continue to be together. She was surprised how we hadn’t met for years and then how we hadn’t missed each other on the way, although everything around us called for that. She was particularly surprised how we lived a love that we did not declare, that we did not expect and that we did not need to manage.
My heart pounded when she talked about love, like a teenager thinking about it for the first time. It was the way I had felt when I regained my sense of smell, my face buried in Yacine’s shirt. I had the impression that Layla was pouring over me all at once, as if she were water that had been dammed for a long time behind a huge boulder, but had finally managed to displace the boulder and come streaming over me. I had no choice but to put myself at the mercy of the raging water and let it carry me, not knowing where I would surface or go under as I released myself from time, since time was condensed in this torrent.
That evening as we were leaving Layla’s house I told her that I loved her. She said simply, ‘I know.’
Quite disappointed, I said, ‘But I never told you that before.’
She insisted, ‘Yes you did. A million times without uttering the words.’
‘No, no, no,’ I said. ‘There’s a terrible misunderstanding here. The feeling itself, I mean the feeling of love, never occurred to me. You know, I felt that the person I am, who does not experience the feeling of love, does, in fact, love you. But this feeling was nothing but a cold awareness. It has nothing to do with what I feel today.’
We got into the car, and when I started speaking again, she stopped me and said that the subject did not interest her at all. She then took my hand, placed it on her chest and said that she wanted to sleep a little while I drove to the Japanese restaurant. Then she said, ‘Look how beautiful the sky is, the clouds, the melting colours. And the light, oh my God, do you see the light?’
‘I do, I do.’
‘It’s a sky just for us.’
I laughed, surprised, but she insisted, saying, ‘Really, it’s a sky for us. Every time we make love, it gives us this gift.’
I drove in silence while she held my hand and I felt her breathing. When I stopped near our restaurant, Layla was fast asleep. I switched off our mobiles and lay down without removing my hand, unconcerned by the curiosity of the passers-by.
Layla had told me many times that all her life she had looked for an easy-going man and that I could be that man. I attributed that to my total inability to ask her for anything. And the pain I had endured liberated me from many aspects of myself without my planning it or making an exceptional effort to that end. Therefore I began watching what was happening to me as if it were happening to somebody else. This distance gave me the capacity to act with a satisfying generosity that I did not clearly understand until I sensed its delightful impact on my surroundings.