The first question Mois Hatchwell Benzimra was asked was about the bad spirits in Paris in those days. Even though it was an obvious question in a sense, but if you were familiar with the French society of those days you would know that once that question came up, things were about to change.
"Do you think all Jews should live in Israel?" asked the mustachioed, well-dressed host, while playing with his mustache. Benzimra was surprised, pondered for a minute, exhaled: "there are two parts to this question. I mean to my answer, I'd say nation-wise, yes, the Jews should carry their duty, or maybe their lack of choice to lead a normal life in this country, but personally-wise, every man should make his own choices. I, for example, cannot move to Jerusalem, because my home is the French language, and I'm a writer that lives the language, that's why I can't see myself writing in French in another country."
"Your book reflects great disappointment out of Europe, of the Jews ability to live in Europe, unlike other French writers such as Chocron, Benarroch, Levi and Swisa, you aren't even looking for a solution within the French society."
"I think they are kidding themselves, I also think that the settling of the Jew anywhere in Europe for the last thousand years was and is temporary. As I wrote in my book, Europe is Auschwitz. Always, they try to prove that the Nazis were the exception, I beg to differ. I don't know what future holds and I don't pretend to know or predict it, but in its essence, Europe can't and doesn't want to accept the ones that are different, it initially expected them to convert to Christianity, and now it expects them to be model citizens. They need to be more loyal than the French themselves and that will never be enough, just as Christianity wasn't. Therefore even Hitbolelut is a one way street. Whoever thought that secularity would solve this problem found himself dealing with World War 2 and with an allover European collaboration to demolish the Jewish lesion. Secularity eventually became a new religion, and a new sword against the others, us, the Jews, or the Muslims, or the Yellows, or the Blacks, I believe all of them are endangered in Europe, and stay there on probation."
"Is France different from other countries, Poland or Germany?"
"Hard to say, it seems like France in more a country of ideas, the Germans and Polish are better in executing. For example, all the ideas of Biological Racism were developed in France in the nineteenth century, back then the Science of Evolution was the thing, just like Genetics today, that was the answer to everything. The Germans executed. Today, and I'm not quite sure where will all this lead to, there in a dogmatic way of thinking that all of citizen-state problem's solution will be found in the right economy system, the ultimate free economy will be the solution to all of the wars and all of the sicknesses of the world and the French people, and that's why I see here, in all these ideas of exporting immigrants in order to solve financial problems, with claims that sound scientific, that same poisonous snake revealing its venom again."
Mois will later spend his night with a glass of Glenmorangie Whiskey at home, rethinking every word, and while watching the tape his friend Marylou recorded on VCR for him, regretting every word, feeling he was attacked more than he should have been, just like those attacks his big brother use to put him under when he was a young boy back in Tetouan, he always felt he wasn't good enough, not good as his brother Yamin was, watching the tape and wondering why didn't he speak more about Tetouan, about the sun there, about the beach he visited again this year, telling about the grace of the Mediterranean sea and its people, instead of attacking everybody. He really wanted to bring a message of tranquility and love, he always finds himself pushed to the corner attacking everybody in these situations.
The phone rang from time to time and jealous people congratulated him for his amazing performance. He thanked them a few times and eventually turned the answering machine on, turning down its speaker's volume, the phone kept ringing endlessly.
"You think" said Louise, "you really think anybody listens, what matters is that you spent forty minutes there in the salad on primetime, that will help you sell your books, and us with getting a new TV."
He didn't answer. He had a sentence that kept repeating inside his head "I could have done it better." He looked at her for a long hour, at the light her pale face reflected from the fluorescents of the massive next door office building. Lit a Davidoff cigarette, and the smoke over her face gave her a look of a cabaret dancer, in a mafia movie. He stared at her quietly for a long hour. She felt embarrassed.
"I won't do TV showsanymore. That's it, I had enough."
"Here we go again. You won't grow up. You want to stay a child."
"What child? I should have known better, you can't really say what you want to there, in that box. The purpose of TV and this kind of interviews was to bring the real person into the viewer's living room, to start a discussion, and instead what happens? They cover you with makeup, you become another number in the rating, you have to play the part. And what's even worse is that even if you don't play the part, you are still a part of it, you become 'the one that doesn't play the part', who is also predictable, because there should be one of these too. It's an ambush you can't escape without losing minimum of self-respect, it's a disgraceful humiliation. This European culture humiliates everyone. The one on the screen, the viewers that envy the one on the screen, the host that needs to ask fitting questions, even our cat Fetisia that didn't understand what am I doing on TV."
Louise laughed.
"Everything you say concludes with blaming the European culture, that’s the solution to all of the problems. You can't afford an Armani shirt you want, so you blame western culture, you can't write or can't fuck, it's because of the French culture, you can't digest, you can’t do this and that and this, and it’s always because of the European culture. And don't get me started with what your Morocco has done for mankind because it is going to start all over again."
"At least it didn't do all the wrongs all your French had done to the world, which is quite a bit."
"No no no, don't you start, I don't want to hear no more of your never-ending three days long speeches, I'm just saying you should ask yourself what are you angry about now. What did you have in mind? That an hour on TV will make people understand you, that you will deliver an amazing message to humanity, the purpose of this interview was that people buy more of your books, tomorrow they will be on the desk of all of the French readers, and that's it, that's what is going to happen, people will ask, and buy a few thousand copies this week, ten of them will read the book, and two that will understand a bit of you, in a hundred years someone will really understand what you mean, and he will be in a mental institution, that's all."
"There won't be even one."
Whenever Mois used these kind of words it meant that he was going to keep silent for two or three days, Louise knew that and went to bed. He used to get into this no-communication state from time to time. Some sort of a creativity process. He would not answer phone calls, would not leave the house, would not take showers or eat. He would just drink Glenmorangie and smoke Davidoff and sleep for fifteen hours a day. He later said to Louise.
"I'm going to Jerusalem in two days, you can join me if you want."
16
- Why are you so angry, why do you keep attacking the Ashkenazim all the time?
- I'm not as angry as it looks, I don't hate them either, I feel sorry for them in a way, in spite of everything, in spite getting discriminated by them on a daily basis, with every prize and every scholarship, I'm not angry I pity them, and it is really hard to speak to people you feel sorry for
- You're condescending
- That’s true, and it's not a virtue, I'm just arrogant and they don't like it, they want to help me, and I think I can help them, I express it in every move I make, I'm your doctor, you are the patients, and what happens here is that the patients are treating the doctors
- So why should they endorse you?
- Because of my talent, not for any other reason, not because I'm nice or not, because of the talent, art
is not democratic, it's not a group or a clique thing
- I think that this attitude will not get you endorsed
- I think the same, this is their challenge, to accept me
- They will never accept you, you need to change your attitude, and the sooner you get rid of this originity thing the better it will be for your literature.
- Censorship, but a polite one. Besides, even if I will change my ways, I'm marked already.
Moshe Fernando
Moshe Fernando Benzimra stayed in Jerusalem, he attended the Yeshiva. Initially in “Or Sameach”, later he moved to "Merimey Marom", where he found his cousin Shmuel Benzimra, son of Mimon, they were a day and night unbreakable team, after all those years they shared the same language, they understood things about each other without saying a word. Fernando's wife stayed in Caracas, and so did his Jewish son John.
"it’s all in the hands of god, here I needed to get through a proper Giur, praise god for helping me with executing this commandment myself, and my Pidion which I conducted by myself, because my father had passed away already, but my son Shmuel, him being originally Jewish, that's the doing of god, if I made it back to Judaism, then it would be only natural for him, who was born to a Jewish mom, to embrace it too."
"And it's your privilege, Fernando, Just like Abraham's, he has forefather's privileges, you have been handed this great privilege, and now that you can say Kadish over your father, I'm sure he is happy for you up there in heaven for your good deeds"
I pray for his soul every day, you see, these are bad days, bad days for Israel, we get prosecuted endlessly and the skies are weeping rightfully, even if it is, god forbid, from the gentiles, I pray for John every day, John, Yochanan who is so far from me and from the Torah, he will come back too, I torment myself with speech torments, to make him come back, and nothing, nothing helps, he stays there, in all that blasphemy and filth, he dreams filth, within all that Avoda Zara, a lot of peels, too many peels"
"Don't torment yourself my friend, don't torment yourself, he will think of you one day, he will call you and come over"
"But time is short Shmuel, time is short, here, the Messiah accords are near, even Oslo agreement had accords too, those are Messiah accords, he is knocking on the door, he is knocking"
"And the people of Israel, with our trespasses, the people of Israel won't open the door, they won't even look for the key, they don't want to hear the knockings"
"God have mercy"
And they went back to discuss Massechet Shabbat.
Later on, Fernando went back to his new family, he looked at his three little children, but could not stop thinking of his first born. Him, not being there was the greatest presence in his life.
He cried for him again at night.
17
- I'm moving to France.
- Again?
- Again, I had enough.
- And then you'll get fed up with France and come back here.
- Something like that.
- You will never be pleased, feeling good comes from the inside, not from the place you live in.
- If the air of Israel makes you smarter, it suffocates you at the same time, I learned so many things here, so many things I was better off not knowing
- This is your life
- I can change it
- The future, not the past
- I can change the past as well, this is why I write.
- Imaginations
- I write the past again and again and it gets softer every time, I like those little Jews from Tetouan more and more, the ones from the Juderia, the ones that we were supposed to avoid so we can stay Europeans, with every word I write about my childhood it becomes softer.
Purim
I remember Purim in Tetouan today. I remember last year's Purim in Dizengoff. I think about Meital and Assaf that had joined his ancestors, and Meital's leg that was erased from earth, about people that lost their lives, their legs and hands, their eyes and their hearing.
In Purim, all the Benzimra family used to gather in the big living room, and the massive wooden table became a casino for two days. They used to open it and play Baccarat. On each side of it, dozens of adults and kids used to put bets, big bets. The kids gambled with their pocket money, won and enjoyed, or lost and cried, and then my mom used to approach me and give me some more money, or take my money away and guard it.
And my dad would always promise that next year I will get a bicycle, the bicycle was dependent on the opening of the Suez Canal. That was his excuse, and I believed him, "they will soon open the Suez Canal and the toy shop will get a big shipment of bicycles, and then you'll get the bicycle", that was my first encounter with Middle Eastern geography.
And last year I got lucky again but in a different way, me and my friend Rami went to Tel-Aviv on Purim, Rami whom I go with to record stores looking for bargains, whom I go with to freshen-up from the day-to-day life in Jerusalem. I also wanted to freshen-up from Sunday's terror attack in Jerusalem, on the Route Eighteen Bus in which eighteen people lost their lives, Route Eighteen Bus that was blown up next to Route Thirty Six Bus. Our route always goes through the Dizengoff and King George Junction. Earlier that day we went to the beach that was lovely and calm, nobody could have expected that in such a beach day, thirteen people will get killed, the gematria of love, and after spending time at the beach, I told him that we can head back to Jerusalem if he wanted to, because I'm not really in the mood for walking around the shops. He said no, and we went to Sheinkein St. to the "Ha'ozen Ha'shlishit" music store. Later, I said we can go have a cup of coffee in "Café Kaze" and not in "Segafredo" as we usually did, but he insisted on "Segafredo", the route I took was different than the one I always take, I avoided King George St. and went through side streets, and we reached "Segafredo". He then suggested we take the car and stop for a minute at the Dizengoff King George Junction because he needed to pick something up from the Dizengoff center for his brother and then we’ll head back to Jerusalem, it was exactly half past three and I remember saying these exact words: "I rather not, go to Dizengoff Center on your own, get what you need, and I'll wait here at the café, we will take the car when you come back." Rami didn't understand my stubbornness, because I am usually very good with changing routes, and I never argue with him, but he went. A few minutes later I heard ten Peugeot 205 police cars honking, and arriving to the Dizengoff Center Terror Attack, I knew he was there, I thought something happened to him, I couldn’t even speak for the next thirty minutes, after that you couldn’t even reach anybody, all communication networks were down, until I finally got a hold of my wife and told her I worry about him. He was safe eventually, of this several-years-long Purim Roulette, maybe all this means something, as "Adar" month is the month of joy, maybe we should be in real happiness and not in licentiousness, maybe these are the sounds of Messiah getting near, maybe these are the days all the Amoraim said they preferred not to live in, in Massechet Hagiga, I don’t know, but these numbers certainly disrupt any ability of rational thinking, as if you can't avoid the notion that they have a meaning, but you can't figure out what that meaning is. They are not coincidental. Just like the Sikorskys that clashed and had thirty six seats. There was a terror attack in Tel-Aviv this year already, as if it was planned ahead, in a café not coincidentally named “Apropo” which means speaking of, speaking of what?
In another Purim, a robber broke into my house and made me give him all of my money. He took the Purim pocket money my kids had, two hundred dollars or so. These Purim two hundred dollars might have saved my life, because I rarely have this much money at home.
And when the canal opens the bicycles will be here and I will be able to ride everywhere.
18
- Mom, are we there yet?
- Go to sleep, son... we will get there soon, soon
- But I want to see the road there, I want to see the towns, Seville, Valencia,
- You should rest
- This way, mom, in the opp
osite direction, they left, our ancestors, all the way from Spain to North Africa, disappointed from the world, and proud of themselves, and here we go, going back the same route
- That was a long time ago, all of this is over, we're going to our land, to our Jerusalem, no one will throw us away from there
- We've been thrown out of there twice already, but back then we were the ones to blame, not them, there, look at this small town, this might be where your great grandmother lived, maybe the woman there is a relative, maybe she was one of those that couldn’t stand the idea of being wanderers
- It is possible
- Or maybe, one of those who couldn't deal with the yearning and got Christianized and went back home
- I didn't know that there were Jews that went back
- There were all kinds, some converted to Christianity and converted back to Judaism, and there were some that went back home, they all left with their keys, not like you, when you left Tetouan without your keys, they considered coming back, and I can imagine them with great yearnings, and sleepless nights, bad enough to prefer converting than to suffer these pains.
Tetouan Of Above
He started talking in terms of energies and all kinds of other oddities, he used to tell me "You take me out of balance, each time my axis balances you start to make me crazy", or "I can't stand your negative energies anymore", "with all the love it holds, I can't bare it no more", things got more and more awkward. I'm not saying I'm perfect and the things he said didn't make sense, but those were my issues, and I was supposed to live with them, not him. He spent days talking about Tetouan, and about Tetouan, building his own fort, where everything was expected and everything lived in the past, a city where the woman is perfect, the Arabs are perfect, the Jews are perfect, even though he kept mentioning it wasn't all perfect over there, and there were all kinds of problems. But in his Tetouan, things were expected, even the murder of a Jew was actually expected and explained as being nothing more than an insignificant tribal collusion, or he used to blame the Jews for being too welcoming with the colonial occupiers, as if they had a choice. He brought countless examples, of Tunisia, of the Jews in Paris living in peace with the Arabs, but these examples were clear to him and him only, it was a closed world, as much as he tried to believe that this world of his had any connection with the Israeli reality, it seemed that things kept slappinghis face, fortune and fame didn’t help him, nor did the many translations and the French rewards he got, nothing helped him, he used to say repeatedly, "I don't care about these translations to European languages, I want to be translated to Arabic, and to be read by my neighbors, the ones I lived with, I want them to know I lived to learn that they were there, that as hard as they tried to put a fence between us, I, young Mois, Moisito, knew that they, that you stayed there" but he was lying there, and he knew he did, because the English translations mattered, they were the ones that brought the money he needed for his day-to-day life eventually, and gave him the possibility of live of writing, he kept asking me about Oran, as if I could remember anything, as I left there when I was only one year old, but he kept asking me again and again, as if this year was more important than the nineteen years I spent in Paris, he used to ask a lot of questions about my lovers, it was embarrassing, I long forgot them and he used to pop a question, all of a sudden, during foreplay, he used to ask "have you ever slept with a Chinese?" and then, if I answered him, he would keep going and ask more and more questions, he used to ask about the nude photo-shoots I was in, the magazines, he couldn’t understand that that was the ordinary life of a good looking woman in seventies Paris, the years before HIV, he couldn’t comprehend that, and that was probably what attracted him in me, and what eventually drew him away from me, asked me a lot of questions about my first husband and about that time he took me to an orgy, where I slept with god knows how many men, maybe ten, but he wanted me to be precise, we were married for merely eight months, then I decided to move to Israel, I felt I needed to get away from this city, he held it against me for years, his mind was set on marriage and that sooner or later I'll come back to France, that I will be the one that will take him to do the thing he feared so much doing, that I will take him to that Parisian dream, maybe he was right, maybe I should have done that, I lived a disconnected life here, I still have heavy accent, and then he went back to asking about the number of men I had sex with in that orgy, he wanted to know the exact number, the precise number, including accurate descriptions of each and every one of them, and maybe if I kept answering he would go on and ask about how much hair did each of them have, and then asked me about my painter lover again, and the sculptor, and the photographer, artists always liked me, countless artists, looking for meaning in impossible things, the ever-changing things, it was always the artists, I don't know what did they look for in me, what did they find in me, I know what I found in them, I found confidence, yes, as odd as it may sound, confidence in what they do, as much as they suffered frustration, as much as the fear of failure ate them from the inside, they kept going, they had something of their own to give, I didn’t have nothing to give, I took from them, I played the receiver part, and they really wanted to give, they wanted to be heard so bad, and I really wanted to hear about their dreams, their creations I couldn’t write, so why did we get divorced? Why with two children, it wasn’t so simple anymore, I had what I needed here and we loved each other, but still, he slowly became harder and harder to live with, and later I became harder and harder to live with, neither love nor children could keep us together, not even great sex, and not even our beauty, it was impossible even considering all that, maybe that was impossible to begin with, hard to understand why do two people meet, have two babies together and then leave each to their own ways, maybe it's genetic destiny,
Keys to Tetouan Page 10