‘What did the man mean?’ he asked.
‘Which man?’ I said.
‘The one who was looking from the roof.’
‘What did he say?’ I asked.
‘He said, “Has the beneficiary of the trust arrived?” ’
‘Does the matter concern you?’
‘It does not. We just want there to be something understandable this morning!’
I resumed my walk, pleased by the child’s curiosity, then I retraced my steps so as not to miss my appointment.
Two buses were parked near the Club Med Hotel, whose façade was almost totally covered by a poster announcing an international film festival. Nearby were a large screen and a stage that seemed huge in the empty square. I glanced at the entrance of the hotel and alongside it, but I did not see the man from my hometown. I tried to imagine the features of the young man who was Yacine’s friend, but failed. I noticed a person walking hesitantly in front of the hotel. I expected him to be the man I was meeting, but when I got close to him he asked me the way to Bab al-Jdid.
The man did not show up at the agreed time, nor more than an hour later. This hurt me, and I wondered if I had fallen victim to the games of heartless teenagers. Perhaps they were watching me from their hiding places. I remembered the young man who had let me believe I was his father from an old relationship, and I thought that maybe at a certain age we become the victims of such games, and their catalyst. Right then, I was willing to put up with the abuse of the world in exchange for a meeting with the two young men, to save me from this wasted morning. I saw the person. He was facing the buses, wearing a Pakistani shirt, a dirty taqiyah, a counterfeit Nike tracksuit top, and sports shoes of the same brand. I thought he was the same man I had met at the Madrid airport, who had been willing to connect me to a thread that would lead me to Yacine, for no reason other than that he too was a son of Bu Mandara and wanted to do a good deed for me. Well, for God’s sake first. There was nothing behind this except lessening the world’s misery and losses. But where was the expected friend, the cornerstone of this story and the justification for its existence in the first place? Why hadn’t he arrived? Could he have been too scared of this strange encounter? What would scare him? Maybe he thought I would contact the police, as Layla had suggested. He would be right to think like that. Even if we discounted that possibility, there was no place for a relationship between us not built on fear. We would fear each other to eternity.
The man turned suddenly and I realised it was not him. I noticed his Pakistani shirt bulged out slightly at both sides, which forced him to hold his arms away from his body, as if he were about to pick something up off the ground. I noticed his ferocious expression, as if he had just finished a violent fight. He was watching me. When I got close to him, assuming he was the young man who had known Yacine and who had been sent on his own by the man from my hometown, he turned like a robot and walked towards the street behind the hotel. I could think of nothing better to do than follow him, in the belief that there was something fatalistic and inescapable about this act of submission. I walked behind the man thinking about Layla; it seemed extremely strange not to be thinking about Yacine and Yacine alone. I sent her a short message on my phone: ‘No one turned up for the appointment. I love you.’
The man was walking leisurely towards the Koutoubia, and I was forced to run after him. Then I slowed down, waiting for him to get further away before catching up again. Koutoubia Square was filling up with pedestrians, traders and loiterers. The number of men who looked like my ‘friend’ increased, and I strained to keep him in sight. At one point he stopped by an open-air bookseller and started leafing through old books and some magazines, which, to my surprise, were women’s magazines. When he resumed his walk it was almost noon and the sun was strong. At that moment I saw him walk in the direction of Bab al-Jdid. I remembered the other young man who had asked me the way to Bab al-Jdid a little earlier. Did he have anything to do with this man? And why?
The man quickened his pace, and I did the same until we reached the Hotel La Mamounia. There in front of the main entrance he stopped beside a taxi and bent down to talk to the driver through the window. He then crossed the street and walked towards a garden that belonged to the hotel. I stood waiting for him without knowing whether he would come back, without knowing whether I would follow him again. He came out suddenly, turned right, and then exited through the gate in the railings and crossed the street, heading towards the pavement that led to the big hotels. I followed him quickly, struck by a crazy idea about the strange fit of his shirt. I wondered if he wasn’t getting ready to blow himself up with a suicide bomb in a specific place, and was looking for a significant mass of foreigners to carry out his task. No sooner had this idea become clear to me than the man disappeared. I ran with all my force along the long pavement until I reached the entrance leading to the hotel district. I went through it, moving fast and thinking about the hotel I had gone to, where I had not seen the person I was supposed to meet. I went then in the direction of Al-Saadi Hotel, then the Kempinski, then the Atlas.
I thought of calling Layla and asking her to warn the police about the possibility of someone getting ready to blow himself up imminently near some hotel. I was afraid to alarm her, though, about something that might not be true. I was soon convinced that the man must have gone to the Conference Centre and the Meridien Hotel, where the guests and organisers of the film festival were gathered. At this hour most of them would be eating a leisurely breakfast after a long night and too little sleep, or eating a light lunch while basking half-naked in the sun.
I moved to the other pavement and dashed towards the triangle of death, as I imagined it, not knowing what I could do if I arrived to find the man about to detonate his deadly belt. Once again I thought about calling Layla or Bahia or Ahmad Majd, but was unable to access their numbers in my state of confusion and fear. I reached the door of the Conference Centre and found the place suffused by the calm of the noon hour. I was swimming in sweat, looking with shifting eyes for the slow-paced man who was not wearing socks with his trainers and could not let his arms hang down in a natural way. But he was not there or anywhere else I could see, where I could meet him and see his face turning yellow as the moment of action approached.
I returned to the Olive Gardens near the Hotel La Mamounia. I wanted to get away from the places where I might meet people I knew. I wanted to return to the starting point where I had an appointment with a person I did not know, who was supposed to tell me about the mysterious time that had swallowed Yacine. Who had arranged these impossible appointments? Why was I following a man with whom I had no connection, and about whom I did not know anything that gave me the right to expect all of this evil from him?
I arrived at the Olive Gardens exhausted. I sought their humid shade and walked aimlessly, thinking what would happen if I took a taxi and heard the breaking news about a faceless and nameless suicide bomber and the carnage he had inflicted. I shivered when I remembered that I could have informed the police about him.