‘But you haven’t lost her,’ replied Fatima.
‘I felt something bad in her voice,’ I said.
Fatima told me that she found my delayed adolescence annoying. Her words made me really angry. I quickly shut the bathroom door for fear of doing something crazy. Raising her voice over the sound of the running water, she said, ‘You must first know what happened.’
When I did not reply, she said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m leaving.’
I packed my suitcase and booked my return ticket on the Internet. As I was walking along the cold street looking for a restaurant where I could still eat lunch, I called Layla. I did that quickly, like someone diving into water. In a calm and friendly voice, she said that she missed me very much and that I must return quickly, that this trip and Madrid were meaningless. I discovered that under the influence of her new tone of voice I had changed and become an exhausted person with only one wish: to rest and enjoy the chances for peace with oneself and with others that life has to offer.
4
Before I left Madrid, Spanish newspapers announced the discovery of a link between a Moroccan detainee and the group responsible for the Madrid explosions. Once more, there was an extensive debate about Al-Qaeda in Morocco and whether there weren’t preparations for a terrorist campaign on the Mediterranean’s northern shore.
I was with Fatima in the airport terminal casually discussing these matters, as if we were avoiding talking about personal matters. A man whom I felt I knew but did not recognise approached me. He greeted me warmly and said that he was from my village. To confirm this connection, he mentioned the names of people from Bu Mandara as if they were shining stars in the human firmament. He paused in particular at Al-Firsiwi’s name, and when he mentioned his own father’s name the resemblance I had noticed from the start became apparent. I greeted him anew and wished him a happy holiday in that city that had no connection to happiness.
After he went off, Fatima asked me if I was bothered by his Afghani outfit. I told her that it was national dress by now. She laughed, and once again asked me to take care of myself and to take from life whatever it was willing to grant me and avoid ruining its mood with endless requests. She said, ‘Life is like a woman and does not like that. How long will it take you to grasp this simple principle?’
I objected, saying, ‘Aren’t you ashamed to use the same advice I gave you weeks ago?’
She hugged me for a long time while the departure call concealed her crying. When I entered the gate I raised my hand high without turning back and then walked towards the plane, submitting to an unexplainable feeling that I too did not like even myself.
When the plane levelled off at cruising speed, the man from the airport, my townsman, joined me, invading my privacy with a flood of stupid comments on immigration, life in the West and Islam’s innumerable enemies. I answered him, agreeing to things I had never thought about. All I wanted was to see him return to his own thoughts and leave me alone. But he seemed to like my reactions, and would go away every time the hostess needed room in the aisle and then come back. He found a solution and asked the passenger next to me to exchange seats, which the passenger did gladly to my great annoyance, thus putting my mood, with all its sudden and permanent weaknesses, at the mercy of this man.
During the hour of the flight to Casablanca, matters moved extremely fast. He talked to me without any preliminaries about Yacine, whom he’d known. He said that although he had only met him once, in Paris, he was the kind of person you did not forget.
‘Do you know what happened to him?’ I asked.
‘Of course. Otherwise I would not have talked to you about him,’ he said.
All my intellectual powers were on alert, and I besieged him with hundreds of questions about Yacine, convinced that an exceptional coincidence had finally provided me with an opportunity to find out the truth about what had happened. My voice rose whenever he gave me ambiguous or incomplete answers. I asked him personal questions, such as why he had been in Madrid, whether our encounter was a coincidence, or had he known we were on the same flight.
He was flustered by the unexpected questioning and lost the confidence with which he had talked to me earlier. Even his bearing lost its force and harshness, which had been in harmony with his clothes and severe features. The plane had started its descent to Casablanca airport when he begged me to leave him alone, and told me that he had introduced himself to me spontaneously and should not have done that. But he had been unable to resist the opportunity to talk about Yacine, never expecting his decision to lead to this interrogation.
He went on, ‘Now, I beg you to calm down. I did not know the Yacine who did what he did. I just knew Yacine, period. I can appreciate the fact that nothing in the world interests you more than knowing exactly what happened to him and led to his death. Fine. Do you want us to close this subject the best way? OK, here is my phone number. I’m going to Marrakech tomorrow. Call me there. We might be able to meet a friend of Yacine’s who travelled with him to Afghanistan. Please understand that I have nothing to do with what happened. Beware of getting carried away and drawing conclusions, thinking that I’m involved in any of those things. I’m only trying to help you, because we met due to divine providence, and only God knows the reason. Why are you looking at me like that? Perhaps you think some group has arranged this encounter. But how could any group, no matter how shrewd, co-ordinate all your doings with all my doings? Try to remember the details of your trip and then try to find something that could be considered pre-arranged.’
I said, as if talking to myself, ‘Life as a whole is a pre-arranged story!’
‘What? Do you mean to say that everything is governed by divine will? It is indeed so. If you only knew where I was going before I decided on this direction.’
I looked down at the runway and saw it surrounded by high vegetation. I was absent-minded to the point of thinking that the plane was taking off for Madrid. It sometimes seemed to me that life required that we listen again to some of its elements by replaying the record. Then, when the plane reduced speed and banked right towards the airport, many scenes came to mind.
My neighbour was getting ready to leave the plane and said nervously, ‘Don’t forget to call me. A coincidence is better than a thousand appointments. We might never have met. One of us might have died without ever having known the other existed!’
I thought that would have been much better than this suspicious encounter.
I called Layla many times, but she did not answer. That evening I knocked at the door of her apartment, but she was not there. She called me late and told me her daughter was spending part of her vacation with her father in Marrakech. She had had to take Mai and stay there, to be close to her.
I said somewhat stupidly, ‘I’m back!’
‘I know. I too will be back in two days. Do you know, Mai cannot stand being separated from her sister? Here, we all go out together, like this evening. It would be very nice, were it not for the attitude of the “first lady”.’
‘I’ll come to Marrakech tomorrow,’ I said.
She replied angrily, ‘That’s all we need! Listen, I can’t see you here anyway.’
I was angry as well. ‘I can’t see you either. I will be busy with another mess!’
When I arrived in Marrakech, I went to see Bahia. She had lost her hair due to the chemotherapy, but she dealt with the situation with studied elegance. I had the impression that she was on her way to recovery. Even more than that, she had regained her confidence in her ability to defeat the illness. As we were eating lunch, she said that she talked to Ibrahim al-Khayati by phone, since new rules allowed this. The three of us talked at length about what should be done for Ibrahim now that the date had been set for the start of his trial. Ahmad Majd said we would ask for his temporary release and then see what would happen.