A Country for Dying

by Abdellah Taïa

  My love.

  I committed a grave error with him. After meeting him and declaring my love to him, I continued to practice my profession. One day, I slept with two of his friends, without realizing they knew each other. A week later, they saw me with him in his wash-and-fold on the Rue des Martyrs.

  Of course, they told him everything.

  Iqbal immediately cut off all contact with me. He even changed his cell phone number.

  The situation was critical. I had to swallow my pride and go on the counterattack.

  But I let a week go by before showing up one night at his wash-and-fold.

  Iqbal was doing the books. He loves it, money, moolah. And, bizarrely, that’s what I love about him. His organized and always forward-thinking side.

  I know that he would absolutely make a very good father.

  I fell in love with him. I want to force him to marry me and for us to quickly have children together. I still have about two years ahead of me to accomplish these two miracles. I’m forty years old. Apparently we can still have kids even at forty-five. If we’ve had children in the past. Which is not the case for me. But anyway, Iqbal will open everything for and in me. With him, I’ll become a mother. I’m sure of it. Period, the end.

  Of course, as soon as he saw me cross the threshold, he was very nice, very courteous. As usual, he drew the blinds. And we made love on the floor, madly: an endless explosion.

  That’s the other source of my passion for that handsome Sri Lankan. When it comes to sex, we were put on this earth to be together. One in the other.

  He willingly lets me dominate him, play with him, use him, lick him, bite him, twist him every which way. And for him to come, he always wants me to penetrate him. A finger. Sometimes two. Thanks to the tips from my Algerian friend Aziz, I’ve learned how to do it perfectly, slowly, gently.

  I know all about how my Iqbal functions sexually. All his secrets, his shames.

  I rarely come with him. But that’s not at all important. I can manage it on my own when I want, where I want.

  Iqbal needs me. I’m the only one who understands him. And on top of it, I’m Muslim and Arab. Which is to say: the ultimate fantasy for Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, Indians, and their cousins. A Muslim with whom Iqbal is not afraid to let go, to open himself up completely.

  And I like that. When Iqbal becomes my little woman. And after, once we’ve finished, he becomes a man again. The man.

  Iqbal is a man in any event, no doubt about it. It’s enough to see him walk in the street, look down on people, speak to them with a natural authority, snub them sometimes, give them only what he wants to give them. In the ranking of immigrants in France, he is all the way at the bottom. But he doesn’t care. The white French people are too arrogant, they don’t intimidate him at all.

  He is never afraid.

  He always carries himself like a king. The king of Paris. Perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit about that. Let’s say: the king of the Sri Lankans of Paris. Besides, after not even ten years here, he already owns five wash-and-folds and five laundromats.

  Iqbal is rich. And that’s the third reason pushing me to accept everything. With him, I wouldn’t have to prostitute myself anymore. I would be the wife of the king. That said, I still have a long way to go.

  After we made love on the cold floor, Iqbal gave me his verdict, in four sentences:

  “I knew that all Moroccan girls were whores. But I didn’t know that you were one of them. My friends Ramzee and Salman told me that they slept with you. And that they definitely paid you.”

  That’s all. Not a word more.

  I denied everything, of course. Absolutely everything.

  “A whore! Are you insane, Iqbal?”

  He stared at me. I didn’t lower my gaze, obviously. The stare-down lasted nearly a minute. I needed some doubt to insinuate itself into his mind.

  I thought I had succeeded in my mission. I was wrong.

  That night Iqbal brought me to a Turkish restaurant, his favorite, on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis. We didn’t speak another word about our argument. Instead we laughed, a lot, and ate, abundantly. We separated late in the night without making any promises.

  I watched Iqbal turn around and walk down the street. Terrified, I watched him grow distant, disappear.

  I didn’t sleep that night, of course. In my head I went over all the options still at my disposal to keep Iqbal in my life.

  Since then, it’s been a total impasse.

  He still needs me sexually. He comes to see me once every two weeks. We do the deed. He takes off again. Without a word.

  Sometimes, when he hasn’t visited in a month, I go to the wash-and-fold. He never says anything. He pulls down his pants. We do what we have to do. And I leave.

  I’m sure he’s in love with me. How could he not be?

  Over time, I have become an expert at satisfying his every desire, including those even he isn’t fully aware of.

  Now I have a plan that I’m refining very patiently. I will not give up Iqbal. Never. I’m not Moroccan for nothing.

  I’ve always been told, ever since I was little, that men never marry their sexual fantasy. It’s not worth trying. That’s the reality the world over, by all accounts. Men marry women who remind them of their mothers, not women who make them get hard, orgasm.

  All right then. We’ll just see about that!

  Iqbal is already mine. He just doesn’t know it yet. He belongs to me in heart, body, soul, and cock. He was created for me. Only for me.

  I will have him, no matter what. One day he will put a very expensive ring on my finger, one day very soon. I’m working on it. Very seriously.

  I have three sorcerers. One, Jewish, in Paris for emergencies. A second, a Berber, in Gennevilliers. A third, Moroccan, in Azilal, in the Atlas Mountains: he’s my favorite, the one who understands me the best, who lets me tell him everything, even the crudest, most sordid details. The only problem with him is that he lives far from Paris, in the heart of Morocco. I can’t see him very often. I’m going to bring him over here very soon, on a tourist visa. One month in my building. There’s a furnished studio on the second floor that I’ll rent for him, so that he can perform the necessary sorcery. One month devoted exclusively to breaking Iqbal, finally making him do what I want.

  My sorcerer in Azilal is tired of working on Iqbal from a distance, and I am, too. But I call him often to keep him apprised of the situation and get his thoughts.

  Iqbal is still attached to me, I see it clearly, through his cock and through something else: love, I’m sure of it. But I want more, I need more: to become his wife. If not, what good is it to slave away from morning to night, welcome all the third-class immigrants of Paris between my legs? As if by magic, they all find me, knock at my door. And often, they don’t have a lot of money, not the amount I ask them for in any case. I never dare to send them back home frustrated. So I sacrifice myself, in a sense. I put on an Oum Kalthoum song and lie down. Without getting fully undressed, they jump on top of me, plunge into me, forget themselves in me, in the heat of my sex.

  As strange as it must seem, I always feel a certain pleasure with them. Not quite sexual. More a pleasure of tenderness, of slightly assuaged distress and hunger. I feel like a sister to these Arab and Muslim men.

  It’s become my specialty. The Arab or Muslim men of Paris. Most of them undocumented. Most of them used by this city that mistreats them with no remorse, and by their white French bosses who exploit them under the table without a hint of guilt.

  Turks. Egyptians. Tunisians. Algerians. Indians. Moroccans, too, but rarely. Some washed-up men from the Gulf countries.

  My preference, by far, is for Pakistanis. Iqbal doesn’t look like Sri Lankan men. He’s more like a Pakistani. A little harsher than them, though.

  The Pakistani men of Paris are the sweetest men on earth. Well
raised. Polite. I never ask them to wash themselves. I like their scent, their smooth mannerisms, their timidity, their murmurs.

  I don’t understand their language. They don’t understand Arabic and speak very poor French. They are different from my Arab clients even though they’re also Muslim. But the Muslim faith is far more inspiring on them. So beautiful, rare. The Pakistanis, in my eyes, have best preserved that Muslim quality. What makes Islam Islam.

  Sometimes, I don’t even ask them to pay. Watching them do with me as they please is more than enough for me. It’s like going to the theater, to the cinema, to see a show with your favorite actor, not the one who excites you sexually, no, the one who inspires you, who lifts you up. That’s what I find with the Pakistanis. Peace. Paradise. Love that needs no words.

  If only Iqbal could be like them. A pure angel.

  My young Jewish sorcerer in Les Halles has told me many times that such a transformation is possible. I like him a lot. He’s named Samuel, a very pretty name. He’s funny. I think he’s a little bit gay. Maybe even very gay. But, unfortunately, he’s not a great sorcerer. Which is a huge shock for me. In Morocco, the Jewish sorcerers are the most powerful beings in the world.

  My sorcerer in Gennevilliers isn’t very professional. As soon as he sees me, he gets hard. And as a result, he can’t concentrate on his work: to communicate with jinns. Not that one necessarily has to be pure to call on them, to wake them, but all the same it’s recommended not to have an erection when you do so. Otherwise, everything gets scrambled. And that’s what’s happened each of the last few times.

  So?

  So the only one I have left is my sorcerer from the village, from Azilal. He will arrive in two weeks.

  I’ve worked very hard recently. I’ve even taken on whites, old Arabs from Belleville who no longer know what to do with their lives, and young Moroccan students, sometimes rich, who prowl around the Montparnasse train station without knowing how to approach those horrible little French minxes, who are in reality quite dull. I’ve expanded my hunting territory all the way to Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, where there are also Kurds, Afghans, and even some Shiite Iraqis.

  I’ve earned a decent amount of money.

  And before the haj from Azilal arrives, I can still work a few areas near the Champs-Élysées, in the oriental cabarets invaded by the new generation of Moroccan prostitutes, those who have just arrived in France and who still dream big. All the way to the sky. Meaning, a loaded man from the Gulf. Or even a prince. They know, as I know, that there are a decent number of members of the royal family from those countries who come to have fun and chase easy Moroccan girls in Paris.

  I’m beyond old, compared to them. I don’t care. I have to accumulate the maximum amount of cash. The haj from Azilal will stay here for one month. It’ll cost me a lot of money. Who knows, I could finally hit the jackpot . . .

  All this for Iqbal. All this for love and its madness. All this to no longer be alone.

  I’m tired of telling myself the same fantasies every night. I’m tired of feeling numb between my legs at the end of the day. Because I have to take them, all those super-hard cocks, so forceful and so impatient.

  I’m tired of not achieving anything concrete. I give. I give. Nothing real. Nothing for later. A husband. A marriage. A house. Peace. Staying at home. Pretending to be submissive. Hiring a maid or two. Giving them orders. Directing my world without budging from my couch. And, most importantly, getting fat. Eating enough to develop generous, overflowing curves.

  I know that Iqbal will adore me like that, as a woman who’s fully embraced domestic life, fleshy and delicious.

  He can pay for me to have that life. He has more than enough to make my happiness, my dreams, a reality. He is the only one who can heal my profound discontentment with life, rid me of the bitterness and sourness that are gradually settling into me. I am ready to give him everything. He can make me into a slave if he wants. Mistreat me if he wants. I’ll take everything. Everything. As long as he comes. Gives in. And he’ll see what will happen.

  I will make him change worlds. God. Family. He will be my thing, my hit, my kif. My legal man. My hallal man.

  I know that I don’t ask for much from life, from God. I know it. I want only Iqbal, so that I can start the final chapter of my existence with him. Nothing more.

  A few weeks ago, I went to see my friend Aziz. It was the night before he was going to have an important operation. He’s changing sex. As usual, once again he wanted me to tell him the story of the disappearance of Zineb, my father’s sister. The mystery surrounding that woman obsesses him much more than it does me. He recognizes himself in her act. She was here. She is no longer here. And as usual, we watched an entertaining Bollywood movie. We love everything that comes from India. Then we spoke about our plans and our unhappiness. He told me of his sad past and the origin of his desire to become a woman. And to distract him, I told the story of Naïma, my former best friend in Paris. Her life was very similar to mine. Like her, I wait, hopeful. I know that miracles happen. They exist. They exist. I see them. Iqbal cannot let me down.

  Just at the moment when everything was drawing to a close for Naïma, the doors suddenly opened. Wide. Very wide.

  I told that story as if it were a legend. Fascinated, excited, Aziz listened to me with eyes full of recognition.

  the happy tale of naïma

  “I was right not to give up. My destiny was finally fulfilled, it found a new path, its own path, true from the beginning. There was a meaning to that tortured, dull life, wrecked long ago. I had to pass through the immense desert to find my oasis at last. Don’t ever turn your back on your goal, Zahira. You will attain your salvation. The wish of a sincere heart will always be granted.”

  Naïma has good reason to talk like that.

  She ended up finding a place to rest, to abandon herself, to no longer be dry and sour.

  Her words are permeated with a somewhat naïve philosophy, but they are so sincere. She is finally speaking her own language, the one deep within her that no one saw before.

  Naïma comes from far away. Very far away. She’s fifty years old today. And, thank God, she did not become a good Muslim woman, like so many others at the end of their career. She doesn’t want to go to Mecca to wash away her sins. No. No. She considers having been a prostitute for all those long years as being more than enough for her to enter paradise upon her death. She was a better Muslim than so many others who talk your ear off with their fake piety.

  Naïma laughs today. She eats. She sends money to her brothers in Casablanca. From afar she watches over the grave of her mother, buried in their home village, near El Jadida.

  She forgave me. Years ago, when I had just arrived in Paris, I stole her clients all the time. I didn’t know how to get my own yet.

  Naïma told me, last week:

  “I saw everything, Zahira, and I let you do it. One day you would understand on your own and repent. There is nothing to forgive, little sister. You did what you had to do. And hey, stealing is an art, too.”

  Tears began to stream from my eyes. She was no longer Naïma. She had become a saint. A true saint. I got down on my knees and kissed her feet. She put two hands on my head. She raised me up. She brought her face close to mine and placed a tender kiss on my grateful lips.

  She gave me her baraka.

  “The dark path can lead somewhere. Hell might be eternal, yes, but at a certain point it stops being only hell. It transforms. We adapt. Something in us opens. The miracle happens. It has to happen.”

  Naïma spoke like a prophet. I told her that. She laughed in my face.

  “I am neither prophetess nor poetess, and even less a pure soul. Don’t change how you think of me. I am a whore like you. Well, I’m not anymore. But I don’t renounce any part of my past. Don’t change, Zahira. We don’t change. We move forward. We go and, one day, things come
together, align. Make sense. Or not. So, please, don’t treat me like the woman I have not become . . . You know what happened to me, don’t you?”

  Of course I knew.

  At the end of her career as a prostitute, no one wanted to lend Naïma a hand, save her from decline. She went to ruin, alone, in Paris, a city that she too adores.

  After babysitting, a profession that doesn’t pay much, for the horrendous bourgeois of the sixteenth arrondissement, she became a barmaid at a place for old Arabs who still hadn’t gotten over the shock of having given away their youth, their strength, their soul, for France, a country more than unappreciative of them, and yet a country they couldn’t seem to leave.

  Naïma’s decline went on for two years in that seedy bar near the Goncourt metro stop, opposite the church . . . She let herself go. At night, after closing, she would offer herself to nearly anyone who still wanted her. For nothing.

  Impossible to believe that this destroyed woman was the same one who had begun her career in the luxury hotels of Casablanca, Beirut, Cairo, and London. She who had turned heads, chosen whom she wanted, set her own prices higher than the going rate, was now a rag that was too yellow, too wrung out, too frayed, ready for the trash.

  Her story gives me hope. Somewhere, in this winter, on this always-cold earth, beyond the earth, there is a great heart for every man, every woman, for all of us.

  Being a barmaid didn’t pay Naïma enough to cover everything: rent, phone, bills, taxes, school tuition for her nieces and nephews in Morocco, her African sorcerer who regularly organized séances to gently appease the jinns that inhabited her. She needed more money to satisfy everyone who depended on her, who couldn’t continue to survive without her help.

  Naïma has a lot of brothers and sisters who found themselves in the same situation. It’s their destiny, our destiny: to pay with our bodies for the futures of others.