“She put a spell on me. I wasn’t myself anymore. No woman ever made me feel like that. I had even agreed toconvert to Islam so we could get married in Morocco. I usedto dream of living with her in Morocco, in Tangiers, betweenthe Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Both of us atpeace, living in another era. But she wanted to move here,dreamt about the stores, the cleanliness, how green Switzerland is, dreamt about the ski resorts. She had heard aboutGstaad and wanted to go there. I told her it was no big deal,just some ski resort where a few wannabe stars that nobodyremembers go to hang out. I told her Morocco was morehuman. Maybe some people there experience poverty but, inspite of everything, in that country there exists somethingmore human, something more alive than what you findelsewhere. Humanity without western progress: that’s how Isaw Morocco ... That was ... fifteen ... fifteen years agoalready. Fifteen years since last I saw the place. No doubtMorocco has changed a lot since then. She met someoneelse, a Swiss German. She broke up with me after that. Iknow she lives here, in Zurich, in Bern, maybe even inGeneva ... I don’t want to see her again. I just want toremember her name ... Seloua, Seloua, a really pretty firstname, so tender, so sweet. When I was with her, I always feltlike I was tasting honey, that’s how sweet her skin was, hersmell too ... Maybe all of Morocco is sweet, overly sweet.That’s all I have left, her first name and the way her skintasted. And that’s enough for me.

I’m happy I can tell you all this, it took me at least five years to put it all behind me. It’s like she put a spell on meand then forgot to lift it after she broke up with me andstarted seeing somebody new. Later on I learned how important magic is for Moroccans, especially Moroccan women.I’m sorry I’m making you listen to all this ... I can’t helpmyself ... I realize now how much my life is still turnedupside down by what happened between her and me. It’s likeI’ve been damaged, permanently damaged ...

She wrote me a long letter. She told me she wanted money, for her, for her family. The extreme poverty, the hardlife, she had enough of it, more than enough. She was beautiful, she knew it. That was her trump, the only card shecould play to win over a rich man and, according to her, theSwiss Germans are all very rich. Anyway, the one she met was.I can’t blame her, she was honest. She knew what she wanted.

She didn’t dream about the same thing I did. That’s what it was ... yeah ... that’s what happened.

I wrote her a break-up letter of course, a long one. I never mailed it.