Hope & Other Dangerous Pursuits (10 page)

Rahal smiled. “You can't be a guide forever. You'll never make a living on it.”

Murad took a sip of his coffee and continued watching the match. “Great kick,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Barcelona will win.”

Rahal didn't look up at the TV. “In Spain,” he said “someone like you would get a job in no time.”

“I don't know,” Murad said.

“Look, I don't usually talk about this, but I can tell. I can tell right away whether someone's going to make it or not. And you will. You're not like the others.”

Murad grinned. Did Rahal think he was going to believe that one?

“Suit yourself,” Rahal said. “Go play guide. Maybe in ten years you'll have saved enough to move out of your mother's house.”

Murad looked down. In his cup, yellowish foam slowly dissolved in the black coffee. “How much?” he asked.

“Twenty thousand dirhams.”

Murad shot to his feet. Rahal grabbed his wrist and motioned to him to sit back down. “If I get caught, I go to jail,” Rahal whispered.

Murad huffed at him. How could jail scare Rahal? He'd dealt drugs in the past, and now he smuggled people to Spain because it was more profitable. Fifteen years ago Rahal's boss had been a simple fisherman, but now he owned a fleet of these small boats and he'd hired smugglers like Rahal to work for him.

“What about me?” Murad asked, his thumb pointed at his chest.

“You wouldn't go to jail.”

“I don't have twenty thousand.”

“What about your family?”

“My father is deceased, may God have mercy on him. My mother doesn't have any money. If it weren't for my uncle and my sister, we'd be out on the street.”

“Can't they lend you money?”

“Not that kind of money.”

“It's a very good price,” Rahal said, “We've never had any problems.”

“All I can get is eight thousand,” Murad said, even as he wondered how he was going to convince his uncle and his sister to let him borrow the sum.

Rahal chuckled. “This isn't some game. We're taking a lot of risk here.” He refilled his glass of tea. “We have Zodiac lifeboats, not like the pateras the others use.”

Murad called to mind the sunken fishing boats the Guardia Civil stacked on the Spanish coast, plainly visible from the Moroccan side. They thought it would scare people. It didn't.

“Ten thousand,” Murad said.

“La wah, la wah. I can't do it for that little.”

“You think ten thousand is little?”

“I don't get all of it. I have to pay for the fuel, don't forget. And then there's the police. I have to grease them.” Rahal turned the extra sugar between his fingers. With a swift movement he put it in his pocket. “Let me tell you something. You know Rashid the baker? His brother went on one of our boats about eight months ago. Now he's in Barcelona and he sends his family money every month.”

Murad never tired of hearing stories like that. He'd heard the horror stories, too—about the drownings, the arrests, the deportations—but the only ones that were told over and over in the neighborhood were the good stories, about the people who'd made it. Last year Rashid's brother had been just another unemployed youth, a kid who liked to smoke hashish and build weird-looking
sculptures with discarded matchboxes, which he then tried to sell off as art. Look at him now. Murad took a deep breath. “Twelve thousand. And that's it,” he said at last. “By God, I won't be able to get any more out of them.” Even though Murad talked about “them,” he knew Lamya wouldn't give him a single rial. For one thing, she now had a wedding coming up; for another, he couldn't imagine asking his little sister for help. But it would be different with his uncle. He would talk to him, man to man, and ask for a loan. Surely the old man wouldn't say no, not after having slighted Murad on the wedding of his sister.

“If you make it twenty thousand, I'll get you a job. Guaranteed. Like Rashid's brother.”

Murad sighed. “Fine,” he said.

“But listen here. People back out. I don't want to waste my time.”

“I'm not the type to back out.”

Rahal took a sip. “Good. When the time comes, we'll call you. We'll meet on the beach at Bab al Oued.”

“When do we leave?”

“When can you get me the money?”

Murad looked away. “Soon,” he said.

A
FTER LEAVING THE
Café La Liberté, Murad headed back toward the beach. He found a spot near the Casbah where he could get a view of the Mediterranean. It was getting dark. In the distance, car lights from the Spanish side looked like so many tiny lighthouses, beacons that warned visitors to keep out. He thought about the work visas he'd asked for. For the last several years, the quotas had filled quickly and he'd been turned down. He knew, in his heart, that if only he could get a job, he would make it, he would be successful, like his sister was today, like his younger brothers would be someday. His mother wouldn't dream of discounting his opinion the way she did. And Spain was so close, just across the Straits.

He started walking through the Socco. He saw a few tourists wandering down the market. He couldn't understand these foreigners. They could go to a nice hotel, have a clean bed, go to the beach or the pool, and here they were in the worst part of town, looking around for something exotic. He thought of talking to one or two, asking them if they needed a guide, but his heart wasn't in it anymore.

The smell of grilled meat tempted him, and he stopped at a stall that made kefta and brochettes. While he waited for his order he heard a woman speak in English and he
turned around to look. It was the one from earlier in the day. What was her name? Eileen. She held a guidebook open in one hand and pointed ahead of her with the other. “I think it's that way,” she said. When she looked up and met his gaze, Murad wondered if she recognized him without his jellaba. She smiled. He saw the ease with which she carried herself, the nonchalance in her demeanor, free from the burden of survival, and he envied her for it.

“Do you know where the Café Central is?” she asked. So he had been right about them after all—they'd come to Tangier looking for the Beats. How easy it would be for him to insert himself into their trip now—he could show them the café where Burroughs smoked kif, or the hotel where he wrote
Naked Lunch.
But he was past all that now; he was already thinking about his new beginning, in a new land. He pointed down the street. “This way,” he said. “Across from the Pension Fuentes.” Then he turned back to wait for his order.

F
ARID HAD SAVED HER
. Some people said it was impossible. They said the boy was only ten years old, that he could barely have saved himself, let alone his mother. They didn't believe Halima when she told them that he'd held out a stick and used it to pull her through the water all the way to the shore. They asked her how he got the stick and she said she didn't know. Crazy woman, they said, fingers tapping temples. You have to forgive her, they said, she's been through so much.

But other people believed her. Halima could have drowned with the others, they said. The captain had forced them out of the boat before they could get ashore. The water was cold, the current was strong, Halima didn't
know how to swim. Yet Farid had pulled her to safety somehow. And even though the Spanish police were waiting for them right on the beach, at least they were alive. Besides, the boy had helped his sister, Mouna, and his younger brother, Amin, as well. They had
all
survived. Farid was a saint.

Even Halima's husband, Maati, thought it was a miracle. When he'd found out she'd tried to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, he'd kicked the TV off its stand and smashed what remained of the dishes. He told everyone that if all Halima wanted was a divorce, then why didn't she just pay him, like he'd asked her? He'd have divorced her. And what's five thousand dirhams for a woman whose brothers work in France? They could afford it. But to take his children, to run away like this, to risk her life and theirs, well, those were clearly the actions of a crazy woman. Is it any wonder he beat her? But even a hemqa like Halima had done one thing right, he said. She'd given birth to his son, to Farid, and his little boy had saved her life. She was lucky.

A
FTER
H
ALIMA
R
ETURNED
to Casablanca, she didn't move back in with her mother, who had never agreed with her decision to leave, and who, Halima feared,
would try to convince her to get back together with Maati. Instead she borrowed money again, this time from one of her cousins, and took a room with her three children in Sidi-Moumen, a slum outside the city. She couldn't find a janitorial job like the one she had before she left, so she joined the hordes of day workers at the market, spent her time squatting on the dirt road, waiting for a nod from someone who needed laundry washed or spring cleaning done. The vendors arrived first, their carts piled high with oranges or tomatoes or sweet peas. Then the buyers drifted through, haggled over prices, bought their food. After lunchtime the marketplace emptied slowly, and by the time the afternoon prayer was called she'd get up and go home. Sometimes, when she couldn't get a job, when the sun beat down on her until she thought her head would whistle like a kettle, she grew angry with Farid. Why had he saved her? Why had he saved any of them? There wasn't any point in living when all you could do was survive.

Then one day she managed to get one of the vendors, who'd cleared most of his cart by lunchtime, to give her his leftover ears of corn. She planned to barbecue them for dinner. She was fanning the fire with the rabuz when someone knocked at the door. Maati was standing on her
doorstep, his body filling the narrow frame. His shirt was open to his chest, displaying hair that had started to go white. His eyes were bloodshot. Halima turned on her heel, scanned the room, trying to figure out where she could hide in such a small place. But Maati grabbed her wrist and, without moving, swung her back toward him. She bit her lip, steeled herself for the blow. But Maati didn't hit her. Instead, he stuffed a piece of paper in her hand. “If this is all you wanted,” he said, “now you have it.” And, as if to punctuate his declaration, he spit on her. The phlegm landed on her shirt, but all Halima could see was the divorce paper, with the elegant penmanship and unmistakable signature of the ‘aduls at the bottom. He turned around and left.

Halima stood, stunned. The fear that had knotted her stomach at the sight of her now ex-husband subsided, and in its stead she felt the rush of blood to her temples. This feeling of elation was entirely new to her. She had tried everything to get this piece of paper, and when she least expected it, it had been delivered right to her doorstep. What had changed Maati's mind? From her mother, Halima had heard that barely a month after she'd run away, Maati had tried to marry again, but the girl's parents had heard about what happened to Halima and
turned him down. Maybe he wanted to erase her from his life and start again with someone else. But then she remembered the long train ride from Tangier back to Casablanca, when Farid had turned to her and said, “I wish Baba had divorced you the first time you asked.” She'd chuckled at his comment, ruffled his hair with her hand, and turned to look at the scenery outside. Now she folded the sheet of paper carefully and slipped it inside her purse. Her hands still trembling, she put a kettle on the mijmar and made herself a pot of tea. Farid's wish had been granted. She had her divorce. She sat, her chin resting on her hand, thinking about what it meant. And she remembered the bleeding tree.

When Halima was five years old, her mother had come home from the market, excited about the news she had heard: There was a bleeding tree, a holy tree, in Rabat. She'd packed their lunch and they'd taken the train to the capital, riding in the fourth-class cabin, where farmers sat on wooden benches, chatting over their bags, their crates, and their chickens. It was Halima's first trip to the city, and she was disappointed by the quiet streets, the groomed lawns in front of government buildings. The bleeding tree stood in a sparsely planted lot across from the flower market, a few steps away from the police station. A dozen
people were there already, some sitting, some standing. From them, Halima and her mother heard the story of the tree. A developer had planned on tearing it down in order to make room for a high-rise, but when the workers tried to fell it, it started bleeding. The pilgrims showed up soon after, some collecting the blood-red liquid for use in concoctions, others using the site as a prayer area. Work had to be halted. Today, someone said, the city had dispatched a scientist to tell people that there was no miracle.

Halima and her mother maneuvered their way to the front line of the crowd, where they could get a better view of the scientist. He was a young man, little more than a teenager, his hair all fluffed up in an Afro like those American singers on TV. He wore a striped button-down shirt and bell-bottom pants. A pencil was tucked behind his ear. He stood, quietly eating sunflower seeds, until everyone settled down. Then he walked up to the tree, flicked open a Swiss Army knife, and made an incision in the trunk. He discarded the piece of wood and, pointing to the blood-red sap, he said that this was a normal substance made by this particular kind of eucalyptus. He called the tree a fancier name, something that sounded like French or Spanish. The tree had been making sap for a hundred years, maybe more. It was perfectly natural.
There was no miracle. There was nothing to see. Go home, he said. People shifted on their legs, looked around at each other, but remained standing. The scientist shrugged and left. Foolish man, people said. What does he know about miracles? He sullied this holy ground. They pointed to the soft, humid earth, where sunflower-seed shells remained, a testament of his passage through the shrine. Halima's mother ran her crooked fingers along the trunk and took some sap, collecting it in a recycled pill bottle.