I forgot to buy something important in Tetouan yesterday. I need to go back. I’ll return this evening maybe late. I imagineyou can figure out how to keep yourselves busy while you’re onyour own. Go to the beach. Or else to the Mauritanya Theater,the one next to the entrance to the medina. Here are 100dirhams for the two of you. That should be enough to get something to eat. Be careful swimming, there are sometimes currentsthat can be dangerous ... Only swim where you can touchbottom, not anywhere else. I’ll be back this evening... perhapsvery late. Don’t wait up for me.

Bye,

Abdelkébir

Mustapha got really excited over the idea that we’d be spending the day alone. Not me. What were we going to dowithout Abdelkébir? What decisions could we make withouthim? And how would we make them? Anyway, I couldn’timagine myself making them. Acting like a man already? Noway! Taking charge of other people is just not what I’mabout. Even making my own decisions is a big problem, adaily nightmare.

I don’t like freedom.

I had this funny feeling that Abdelkébir’s absence would haunt me, bother me all day long. And that’s whathappened.

I tried all day to picture him in Tetouan, in El-Madiaque, walking around, arguing over prices, looking for that all-important something that had forced him to go back toTetouan a second time ... I couldn’t do it. I could easilypicture him there, picture his body that I feel I’ve almostmemorized by now, but not the rest. Not that city which hascome between us, that city which I don’t like.

And what if he lied? What if he went there to meet some girlfriend? Some boyfriend? All of a sudden I didn’t trust himanymore. Based on my suspicions, this incredible hatredtoward him rose up inside me. I felt ill, unhappy, alone, sad,depressed, with no taste for life. Something inside me wasn’tworking anymore, wasn’t working like it should.

Was that normal?

I finally admitted it, do admit it, don’t know how to put it, can’t say it any other way: I’m in love with Abdelkébir!

I’m not going to go into the nature of that love here. It’s something beyond me. Something that haunts me.

I’m in love and that’s all there is to it.

I feel abandoned. Unloved. Hollow.

Where is Abdelkébir now? What is he doing? Who is he with? What is he thinking?

On the beach, Mustapha caught up with his friends and played soccer with them all afternoon. They invitedme to join them. Out of fear of making a fool of myself,getting treated like a girl again, I turned down their invitationand stayed by myself, offering my already darkened body tothe sun.

This older man (maybe 35, 40?) came up to me. He gently touched my shoulder and said in French: