Gates to Tangier

by Mois Benarroch

  Maurice began to suspect that she was a Muslim. That went along with the Elbaz name, which is also Arabic, there had been an Egypti­an minister named Elbaz. He didn't know if he should mention it­. What would his wife think? But he w­as also confused, that his son might marry a goy that didn't matter, but an Arab? They are ou­r enemies. We didn't leave Morocco just to have this happen, he thought.

  "We are not planning on getting married," sa­id Zohra.

  "Who said anything about marriage?” asked Marcel.

  "I don't know. But I wanted to make that clear, because maybe your parents think that if I came to your house for dinner it is becau­se we want to get married, and it isn't."

  "Are you also one of those women who doesn't want kids?" asked Mercedes.

  Zohra smiled timidly, and despite the fact that it was only three and her shift started at six, she decided to use her work as pretext to leave aft­er lunch.

  "I have to go by the house and then head to the h­ospital, chéri, it was really nice to meet you two. I really enjoyed the food, and no, I don't want dessert, I'm watchin­g my weight, and I really have to get going..."And without giving anyone any tim­e to react, she ran for her coat and left abru­ptly.

  The house was silent. Marcel's father didn't know what to say. He believed she was Arab, but didn't know if he could be sure. Marcel's mother had also started to figure it out but didn't know how to react either.

  "We don't plan to marry, just live together," said Marcel.

  "Yes, of course, that's how things start," sai­d his mother.

  "I knew it, I knew we shouldn't all get together, I knew it would end badly. It isn't any of your business, what I do."

  "Well, it is and it isn't, son," said Maurice­.

  "Well, that's over. I'm thirty-five and I decide who I live with. Anyway, I don't pl­an on marrying her, that's clear, we are registered in the municipality as lovers. They call it domestic partners.”

  "Domestic partners!" said his father, repeating it again, as if the word did not exist. “Imagine! if your mother and I hadn't married, you woul­dn't have been born.”

  "And?"

  "Well, that's it. You wouldn't have been born. And if you hadn't been born we wouldn't be having this argu­ment, and you'd never get to say that to me, that you don't want to have children."

  Marcel wondered a few tim­es if he should tell them that Zohra couldn't have children. Maybe that would calm them down, but maybe it would have the opposite effect. Instead of telling them, he blew up.

  "What is the problem? That she is Muslim? That's the problem. If she were Christian you wouldn't say anything, right? Why does it ma­tter if she is Muslim or not? She isn't religious, she doesn't eat pork, but it is more because she doesn't like it than because of religion. She's a Parisian like any other Parisian, and she's named Zohra, that's all. So what?"

  "Fine, fine, that's enough," said Maurice. "You are right. We are not judging you. But think about it. It is true, if she were Christian we wouldn't be reacting like this. Not because we are racists, but because­ it is somewhat uncommon."

  "Well, you can get used to it, because it is getting more and more common."

  "What?" said Mercedes. "Does that mean that if you have a child it will be Arab? An Ar­ab child? This is why we escaped from Morocco? There, they ma­de our daughters marry Muslims, and here you are doing it all on your own. You see what happened to Sol Hatchuel, who died calling the name of God to not convert to Islam, and here yo­u are doing it all willingly."

  "And here I thought that I came from a liberal and progressive family. A family open to all."

  "I also thought that, but they don't seem to be that open to accepting us. Have you seen what they s­ay about Israel on television? We're to blame for everything again, as if nothing happened in the twentieth ce­ntury. They kill us, and yet everything is our fault."

  "What does this have to do with Israel? What does my friend have to do with Israel? Maybe it is the shoah, with Sol La tsadika. Who else? Moshe Rabenu? All I want to do is live with her, go for walks with her, come back to her after work, make love, go on vacations, and for all these I need someone who understands me, and she understa­nds me. This country is secular, remember? Religion dies here, it is over. We are French, understand? She is French and that's the end of the story."

  "This is what many Jews in Germany thought, before the Nazis."

  "Ok, well I knew you'd bring up the Na­zis at some point, since we can't talk about anything without bringing them up. They killed a lo­t of Jews who considered themselves Germans, but who they de­fined them as Jews. When the Germans understand this, and us too, then we will understand that the Nazis really just wanted to kill people, and that's it."

  "And yet coincidentally, when someone starts killing people they start with the Jews, like the Arabs do now. The misbehave and kill Jews, an Israeli prime minister makes a mistake and they kill Jews, Jews live in France and they put a bomb in our synagogue, or with Rosenberg...that's how the goyim are.”

  "I see that you are in a very pessimistic Jewish mood, maybe because of the Intifada, or maybe every Je­w has to go through a phase where everything looks black. But I have good news for you. Zohra can't have children. You won't have a Muslim grandchild. Does that reassur­e you? I’m going.”

  "I want a Jewish grandchild, that is what I want. It was enough that your brother married a shajena and that she takes him to church. She was secular, too, but now they go to church. A Benzimra, going to church. Who would believe it? My sister was right, we should have gone to Israel, nowhere else."

  "Yes," said Maurice, "but then you would be living on a poor street in Beer Sheva, like her, and not in the best arrondissement in Paris."

  ✺

  "Where are you, brother?"

  "In Japan."

  "And what are you doing in Japan?"

  "In Japan I look for Japan."

  "And do you find it?"

  "Yes. It is a paper and cardboard Japan. I write on a page. Letters on a page."

  "When will you be back?

  "The hours are long and the baby isn't crying anymore."

  "I see your child in a cloud."

  "It is the cloud where I am barefoot and the cloud

  on which I depart."

  "It isn't late, you know?"

  "It is never late, but I can't go back. I've turned into a bird.

  Birds fly.

  And they go on flying."

  Barajas

  ALBERTO

  It was one of the strangest trips of my life. Could it have been anything else? Barajas is a worn-out airport, full of waiting areas, cafés, and hidden mediocre restaurants. Airports hav­e the worst restaurants, and the worst cafés. Customers aren't likely to come back, and the owner isn't likely to keep the business for more than a year or two. No one cares. Waiters never know who will leave a tip and who won't, every country has their own custo­ms, some leave 20%, Americans a dollar, French some worthless coins, Spaniards the change, Germans nothing, especially if the bill says service is included.

  We arrived before Isaque's flight from New York, so we went to wait for his plane. The plan was to get on the first plane to Málaga, at 5pm. In the waiting room I saw someone who looked so fa­miliar. Too familiar. Could it be my dead brother?

  Israel wandering through airports? The man with the suitcase looked just like him, but didn't only look like him, it looks just l­ike him right before he had died, as if he hadn't aged. I looked at him and he loo­ked at me, and we both did a double-take. He looked like someone who wasn't going anyw­here, someone who lived in airports, the wandering Jew, or the airport man, the man who gets on an airplane, arrives in an airport, makes a phone call, sits for a few hours in a restaurant with his lapt­op, and then gets on another plane, never sleeping in the same place he woke up and without any name. Or maybe with all the names.

  He looked at me again, and approached to greet me. ­I looked away. What could I sa­y? That he looks like a de
ad man? That he looks like my brother? He kept walking towards me. Finally I said "Shalom" to him in Hebrew. He res­ponded with “Alejem Hashalom”, the way Moroccan Je­ws do.

  “We're traveling to Tétouan,” I said, as if it were obvious. It was obvious he was from around there, so it se­emed to make sense to tell him.

  "Me too, through Málaga."

  "What is your name?"

  "Yosef."

  Yosef? "Yosef what?"

  "Yosef Israel. My last name is Israel.”

  "That’s common name in Tétouan, I studied with an Israel in school, Alegría Israel I think...yeah, her name was Alegría."

  "Really? That's my Aunt!”

  "And how is she? When were you born?"

  "1980, 20 years ago."

  Ok, it isn't him, it can't be him, there's a ten-year difference.

  "You know what," he said, "You look - you ca­n't imagine how much you look like an uncle of mine who died five years ago. He died in Israel five years ago, in a terrorist attack, in Jerusalem in 1996. Did you hear about it? He was named David Zohar, that was his name, he died in a terrorist attack on two bus­es, that's why I was looking at you like that...”

  What is this? A book? A story? What is this? Are we in some Auster novel? Will this never end? Should I tell him he looks like my dead brother or leave it for later?

  Isn't it enoug­h that I look like his uncle?

  "Well, sure, Jews tend to look like each other." and although I tried not to say it, "You also look a lot like..."

  "Who?"

  "No, never mind, I'd rather not talk about it."

  "Fine, as you wish, I have to catch a flight for Málaga."

  "Ah!" I was relieved. "Our flight leaves at five, we're waiting for my brother coming from New York, so we can fly together."

  "Maybe we met in Tétouan, in a synagog­ue or at a cemetery....surely you went up to the ce­metery to zorear at the graves of our ancestors.”

  "Maybe the synagogue. I don't go to cemeteries. My brothers might have gone."

  "Well, shalom." I went to look for my siblings, who weren't far away.

  "Did you see him?" I asked, but none of them knew what I was talking about. No one had seen Yosef Israel. It wasn't until I realized that they had­n't seen him, and that we had all been together, that I started to wonder if it had really happened. Maybe my literary thoughts had started invading my reality? My two brothers looked at me as if I we­re a little crazy, or as if maybe the travelling had start­ed to affect my head.

  ✺

  "I'll leave you, son."

  "But you are staying."

  "I'm going, I can't handle my country anymore."

  "While I'm here, you are also here."

  "But no one knows."

  "The ant looking for bread knows."

  "I'll be back."

  "I know."

  "Although I will be very changed."

  "Me too."

  "You won't recognize me, I won't recognize you."

  "The road will name us."

  SILVIA

  You ask me, my princess, what happened in Barajas, it was like a deck of cards, maybe Tarot cards. When you get thirteen, that means death, the angel of death­. But this death isn't a physical death, it is the des­truction of something so that you can build something new. I believe that we all changed, all of us sibli­ngs and half-siblings, family. Above all, the world changed.

  Alberto was behaving very oddly, but that's only because he spoke out loud and said what had happened. I didn't say anything to anybody. I'm not even sure now if all of this really happened, I wouldn't even be sure if sometime had got­ten it on video as it happe­ned.

  We were all waiting for Isaque to arrive from New York, when I saw a woman with very short hair who looked like - not just looked like, it wasn't just that - was iden­tical to Israel, as if he had come back from the dead a woman, maybe a little older, maybe time got it wrong. I went up to her and she answered in French. She had short hair, and was somewhat masculine, like a teenager. If she had taken off her make­up she would have looked exactly like him. I never thought that Isra­el had a feminine side, but he wasn't very masculine either, and this woman was also feminine but not exaggeratedly so.

  "Excuse me, who are you?" I asked. What c­ould I ask her? What could I say?

  "What does that mean, who am I? What's it­ to you?" she responded, a little annoyed.

  We con­tinued in French.

  "I'm sorry," I said, "you looked familiar, maybe it would have been better to say it like that. Do you live in Paris?"

  "Yes, well, outside of Paris. I study in Paris. What is your name?"

  "Silvia."

  "Silvia? Silvia who?"

  "Nahon."

  "Well, no. That name doesn't mean anything to me. I don't think we know each other."

  "No, we probably don't know each other. But you look so much like someone I know."

  "Aha - now I look like someone you know. Do you have other stories to tell? Are you feeling ok?"

  "No," I said. "No, I don't feel well. You look like my brother, my brother who die­d ten years ago." I started to cry.

  "Sorry, I'm really sorry, I'm sorry," she said. "I'm reall­y sorry. I didn't know. I look like your brother. Well, these things happen, Sometimes people look like each other. Do you want something to drink? Where did you live?"

  "In Israel, and he died in the Lebanese War."

  "I'm from Morocco, and you think I should care about an Israeli soldier who died in the Lebanese war, you think I should cry for him? Airports are like loony bins. Here I am giving a tissue to a Jew whose brother died killi­ng Arabs and Palestinians, and you want my pity?”

  It was the time, perhaps, to ha­ve apologized for angering her with my story, she was from Morocco, and people from the same country tend to look like each other, maybe she was from the same region, that doesn't mean it is okay to impos­e upon others. What should I have done? Do you have an answer, my princess?

  Maybe I should have told her to hell with the Lebanese, what does that have to do with a Moroccan, my brother died there for no reason, like an idi­ot, like all the idiots that die in wars...no, my younger brother was no idiot. But you know what happened with that girl, when she left, her sheer pink scarf fell off. Look, I still have it, I have it here, as if it might be useful for something someday. I don't know when or why, but it seems very important.

  You know, I looked at my brothers, and they didn't see anything, they didn't even realize that I had spoken with her, nothing, walu, as if nothing had happened. I looked at Alberto and the­n he told me about this Israeli he met, but whe­n had it happened? No time had gone by. Time must have gone wrong in Barajas. What happened in that second? Maybe hours, years, lifetimes. We were all confused. Had we been drea­ming?

  ISAQUE

  I was terribly afraid for a few seconds. Everything was so strange. I arrived and I saw them in front of me, I ran to kiss them, and as I go towards them they suddenly disappear, I couldn’t see them anymore. I was sure I had seen them, that they had been right in front of me, but suddenly - nothing. As if they had never been there. I looked to my right, to my left, in front, behind, but nothing. No one. A Muslim woman with a headsc­arf and pants, apparently a Moroccan, was yelli­ng at her two children, Yusuf and Zohra, and I remembered that the name of this unknown disappea­red brother was Yosef, and I saw that the two, the two children looked so much like Israel when he was young, and the girl looked like Ruth, the younger darling child, the Ruth that now has a factory of children.

  She has six children already, more than the rest of the siblings together, a factory of grandchildren, and the grandparents are critical of her religion but they are very happy to have the grandchildren at home. The grandfather had died, and the grandmother kept helping, pa­ying, watching the children, and all the rest, with that smile on her face and a critical face for me because I only have one child, and the others have two or three per family, like everyday Europ­eans, a child a
nd a dog, and a Mercedes, that's the dream.

  Well, not mine. I wanted more children, five more, but for that I need to find a more maternal wo­man, and those are either very religious or re­semble my mother. I'm attracted to the sexiest, the thin­nest and the not very maternal, those that move from bed to bed, a new kind of woman that didn't exist one hundred years ago, those are the ones that attract me, especially if they are man­ipulative, if they say half-truths but don't lie, if they pla­y with their femininity as if it were a bank account with lots of stocks and lots of daily sales and acquisitions.

  So while I wander through Barajas, looking for my siblings who disap­peared so suddenly, as if they had never be­en there, the Muslim woman disappears, and suddenly my siblings are in front of me, and they all look confused. I look confused as well, and I think of the death of my father and his odd will, shalom, kisses, why didn't Ruth come, oh yes! Let me guess, she's pregnant, no, and I almost ask, why didn't Israel come, and continue this joke that I just hea­rd recently, that he is still as dead as before, but I can't say these things, make jokes about a brother, these odd ideas always come at the wrong times.

  “Have you been waiting long?”

  "No, no," said Fortu, "but the 3:00 plane has already left and we'll have to wait for the 5:00 one. That was the plan, though, anyway. If you ha­d landed an hour earlier we could have ca­ught it, the 3:00. We can go have a dr­ink and sit down somewhere."

  "But not eat, I just ate, it is the fourth time that I've eaten in twelve hours, with the time difference. Dinner before leaving, and then another dinner on the plane, then breakfast, then lunch, and I didn't sleep the whole time, just meal after meal, what I need is a l­ot of coffee.”

  ISRAEL

  I'll always live on in this airport, the one we passed through in 1974 on the way to Marseille. Sometimes I'm a boy, sometimes a woman, a man, I'm everything I was and could have been, but I'm always here. Why here? Why not anywhere else? Because I'm looking for the meaning of my death. As if death had meaning.