He needs someone to open his eyes. He doesn’t need to thank this bitch for the cheap thrills she gave him by offeringher life in exchange for his ... His life, to be precise, is yet tobe lived. Abdelkébir has gotten nowhere yet. Up to now,he’s never been anything but a minor civil servant. Could hehave given up his dreams just to have sex? And what aboutour dreams? The hope we placed in him? Our future linkedforever to his?

I need to fight on his behalf, fight for him. And I know how to do it.

I’m going to lie to my mother, tell her that I saw Salma and she’s a real bitch, a sorceress, a dangerous girl from theRif who none of us could get along with. I’m going to do allI can to tell her to stop this miserable marriage. I know Iwon’t have to give a lot of reasons why because she’ll be on myside even before I start: Abdelkébir’s wedding is not happeningtoday and it’s not happening tomorrow. My beloved brother’sreal wife is my mother, that’s who, my mother and nobodyelse and she’s the one who will choose for him when thequestion is seriously asked and all her conditions have beenmet, both by him and by the woman who would be his wife.

I am saddened, relieved. Happy?

I’m not going to cry.

I haven’t been the same for a week now.

Abdelkébir’s not lost. He’ll still be ours for a few more years. That’s what I feel deep down inside me.

In the meantime, I’m still traveling with him, moving across his body.

Tangiers, in the end, will prove to be all I thought it to be. City of my first battle to be loved. And I know I’ll come outthe winner.

Tangiers, city of every kind of trafficking.

Abdelkébir is lucky. His body belongs to us.

III

_________

On the other shore, far, so far away, alone, helpless, panic-stricken, done for, I was already crying: “Help.” I called Morocco, called my mother in Morocco.

I had just arrived in Geneva. I was still at the airport.

I told my mother a pack of lies. I had no other choice.