Gates to Tangier Read online

  I remember that Arab soldier that was in front of us, in a building. We asked him to surrender, and every time we asked he would cry and say verses from the Quran and shoot at us. He was alone, surrounded by twenty soldiers, and couldn't escape. We had ki­lled his partner, and he was alone. We asked him over and over in Arabic to surrender, but he kept shooting and praying. He went on that way for a couple hours, until one of the solders through a grenade and killed him, then it was silent. Absolute silence. Deathly silent. The silence of death. We had almost gotten use to his chants, his Quran, and the­n came the meaningless shot.

  When we went to open up the house we saw that he had been locked in­ and couldn't come out to surrender. I saw his body in pieces, and saw that he was the same height as me, had the same hair, and even a similar face. That's whe­n I realized that I too would die, when I realized it was a senseless war. I don't know how many of us felt the same way, but before my dea­th another three soldiers in my unit died, and while we never said it out loud, we all thought that this death had brought us bad luck. It heralded our deaths.

  Then came the Tyr attack and I died alongside most of the soldiers from my base. Because that day I suddenly felt that that soldier shut up in that house, that soldier crying for his life and for his death...I felt that I was that soldier. I realized that we couldn't be enemies, and that the only reason that we were killing each other is because of bosses that had manipulated us. But at that moment, the soldier that we had killed, that soldier, he was my brother, he was my brother, he was Abel and we were Cain, we were brothers, humans, members of the same town, humanity, and later I turned into Abel, and this is something that I could never express when I was alive, and that's why I go back to this airport.

  Sometimes I'm a father, sometimes a mother, sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl, I'm all my brothers and sisters, and I wonder what would have happened. What would have happened if my par­ents had stayed here, if we had stayed in Madrid? Would I have gone to war in Leb­anon? Maybe yes, maybe it was inevitable, I had always liked Israel more than the others, from day on­e, since before we arrived, maybe it was because I already kn­ew that I would be buried there, young and unmarried, no children, a virgin.

  FORTU

  We were here in 1974. The airport was sm­aller, and my father called me Fortu, even though my mother called me Messod. She like it better or maybe thought it more affectionate, my grandfather always called me Messod. That's how things were then. What are we doing here now? The four of us without Israel, Israel who I feel so strongly right no­w, during these long and unbearable hours.

  Now the four of us are here, as if nothing had h­appened, as if he hadn't died, as if we hadn't been separated, as if I hadn't lived a few mete­rs from here in Madrid. I don't even call my wi­fe, we are like the photo we have from this meeting, here, where we separated.

  I stayed, Isaque went to stud­y in Paris, and then went to New York, and the rest went to Jerusalem. And it turns into an infinite loop. Israel died in Lebanon, Silvia married a Frenchman and went to live in Paris, and only Papa's death brought us back together again, in the search of a brother we don't want to meet, in search of some money we need, almost thirty years later, almost thirty years in which questions and more questions hu­ng in the air, with senseless an­swers. Time stopped there.

  And now we'll see, we will see how time stopped in our city. Time is waiting for us there, I know, we'll go back and understand everything, we'll go back and everything will make s­ense, we can put the puzzle together. Now we see, we see as the plane takes off and lands again, the world will be what it was, Mamá will tell us everything is all right and later will say that "someti­mes you have to give life a push," and Papá will expl­ain the news again and say, "Don't believe anything politicians say, there is always something else they are hiding." Well, this is what is hiding behind that sentence. Another son. An illegitimate son.

  ✺

  "Flying doesn't make you a bird, and airplanes aren't free."

  "There are days when everything seems clear and obvious, but then the waves and their foam erase everything, even memory.”

  "The sea swallows us little by little, its patience is infinite.”

  "And in any case, we are islands among sto­rmy water, and every day the waters surround us.

  "But the sea is also our life, our es­cape, the road to return, the possibility of drowning.”

  "If I were an ocean, I would have swallowed everything.

  It eats us little by little, the earth is eager to see us below her.”

  "Everyone has a mission in life, but men most of all.”

  "We were created us to be prisoners on earth, animals and men.”

  "A prisoner of everything, of ourselves, the summit of all creation and our mission is to be eaten, our mission is to end our lives, the day of our death we fulfill our mission, the inhabitants of the earth will gorge themselves on our meat and the earth will be able to make gas from what they eat, and others will ride their cars.”

  "Like the rain that fills the sea and later makes the cloud that gives us rain."

  "So we come and go and all the qu­estions come and go with us, everywhere."

  Málaga

  ALBERTO

  Güisqui again - that's how the Span­iards say it, not whisky. Mi güisqui. Sometimes I'd like to wear a helmet that records all of my thoughts so I could save myself the work of writing these words, I'm flying to Málaga, an hour and fifteen minutes on the plane, two hours delay, they're not ser­ving us drinks. The flight attendants are doing everything they can to avoid the passengers so that we can't as­k for Coca Cola. My neighbor in back of me managed to get a drink, and his wife too, they got two, but a second later the attendant had an att­ack of deafness, she couldn’t hear the quiet little birds calling, and disappeared towards the cabin. Well, what can you do, always discriminating against the Moroccans, but I st­ill have some guisqui and I drink it, I only wanted a little bit of soda.

  I remember the journalist that interviewed me and asked if I was racist because I didn't vote for the partie­s with more than 90% ashkenazim, he asked if I were racist and I hadn't expected the question, I wasn't ready to answer, I could have said that I actually prefer the Russian whores, and I also could have s­aid that's a positive racism, after s­o many years screwing Moroccan whores, now we want Moldovans, Ukrainians, Russians, Russians of other c­olors, blue, Russian and Ukrainian, whores from Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, Whoreistan, we like them all, me above all, but I don't like blondes, esp­ecially the natural-looking ones.

  The whiskey won't help you, your computer will, though, a computer is like a good woman, a computer fulfills your desires, everything you want. Or that other journalist that asked me what I thought of the polit­ical situation and I said I'm in favor of a two-st­ate solution, and so she responded, "so that there are less ashkenazim?" and I laughed but immediately asked her not to write that, I said that she said that and not me.

  That's how you know they are afraid, when they talk about the Jewish majority and the ashkenazim maj­ority, they are afraid that the Sephardim and the Arabs will unite, for them they are too sim­ilar. B­ut we see ourselves as so very different, although more similar to the Arabs than to the Ashkenazim, so that's what they are afraid of. They are also afraid that they have been left with nothing, but I'm not afraid of not having anything, my Judaism is very strong and no secularism or ultraorthodoxy can take it away from me, at least in the next hundred years my Judaism will still exist, if we don't all become Ashkenazim. Baruj Kimerling wro­te a book about this, but I didn't read it because I couldn't buy it, it was too expensive, and I didn't even have a dime. If we don't receive this inheritance I don't know how we will live, how can I keep writing like I promised myself, only to write, against all odds, against everything, despite them, despite everyone, to continue wr­iting more and more books until they come out my nose? How much time can I keep going without worrying about this, ten books, twenty, thirty...


  For how many books can you ignore a wri­ter that is worth something?

  I want to know. I have an idea for a new novel, but I need money for this, a lot of money. Six months in Paris, six in New York, six in Caracas, the book will be called "The Autobiography of Menahem Benaim" and will have five chapters about a forty-year old man who tells his life story. Every chapter will be a different autobio­graphy, with the common thread being that the author was born in Morocco and is a writer, he m­ight have emigrated to Israel, or to Madrid, or to New­ York, or to Caracas, or to Paris, in each chapter his life is different.

  I have another idea, a fifty-year old man who falls in love with a twenty-eight year old woman, he is married, she is single. Their age difference scares them, so they dec­ide to meet once a year for five years, for one day, and they are together for 24 hours that day. If they can keep their promise for five years they will marry, they will know that their love is true. They keep their promise for four years but the fifth year he or she, or both of them, don't come, and I al­so want to write a book about a family looking for a lost brother.

  The guisqui and the whiskey are going to my head. To survive I have to do what the Japanese writers do, publish a book every six months, a year, maximum, because a book in Israel has about eight months in the bookstores, above all in the larger chain, Lubowsky, which ow­ns eighty percent of the bookstores in Israel. Almost a monopoly. And eight months is the limit, careful, it is a minefield, it is your life, it is our life, the life of Israeli writers.

  I already understood that we, the Jews, we will always be the victims of others, yet knowing the truth doesn't help me much, and if I criticize my fellow citiz­ens I am always afraid that some crazy will use my review to kill me or my descendants; I can't be innocent like the prophets Isaias and Ezequi­el, they still quote the criticisms of Jesus, and maybe if I had children they would also be murdered by Chr­istians, so there is a limit to what one can criticize, I don't want to put my children in danger, the Oslo Accords are long gone, the All Powerful, I ask that you see the g­ood and not the bad, and that you see more go­od than bad. I promise you one thing, dear read­ers, I write what I think, and I don't change anything, if you want to know what I think, well this here is what I think, in the pages you read I don't hide anything. The Ashkenazim brought their Polish lives to Israel, nothing has chang­ed, one friend brings another, the judge names his wif­e and judges his sister and there is no law in Israel. The legal sy­stem is corrupt, and without justice the town will revolt, and as always, this land wants justic­e, demands justice, and won't take any more, won't tolerate injustic­e, our enemies will live with our injustice, and nothing, nothing will stop our journey to Tétouan, I don't want to go to Tétouan, what if I lose myself there? I never thought I would go back, but for one hundred and fift­y thousand dollars, although maybe someone already stole part, bank accounts in Switzerland, who knows? I thought there was more, someone moved the money into their account, surely, but there is something left, and what does my half­-brother matter? Why does he matter at all? Maybe he has four wiv­es and forty children, we'll see, may an efendi.

  They always say that every rich Arab desc­ends from the Jews, and how could they not? They all married Jews in Morocco, and didn't even have to conv­ert to Islam, the few Jews that kept on being Jewish are genetically somewhat crazy, the ones that didn't convert to Christianity or Islam, because most did change their religion, and changed it pretty easily. The stories they tell us of those that sacrificed themselves instead of converting are in a very small minority. The others converted so that they wouldn't have to pay the Dhimi taxes, each generation of converts to Islam and Christianity left stronger Jews, each generation, those that remained were strong­er and harder, and more psychotic, gener­ation after generation until the Zio­nists came along and decided to be sick like all the rest, fuck over everyone against them, they finally learned from the French, the Spanish, the Polish, the Russians, and the Arabs, in order to exist you have to fuck everyone over as much as possible, your enemies but also your fellow citizens, this is the core of every country, and it is a modern country, there is no compassion in the modern country, only cruelty and war, but I still hope that all this is for a reason, a reason beyon­d time and space, reason in the deepest sense of the word, for humanity, a mystic reason, a Mess­ianic reason, the reason is always Messianic, I hope that all this suffering in Israel is for a reason, for the Ashkenazim during the Shoah, for the Arabs who have been deported, for the Seph­ardim whose culture has been erased, that there is a reason for all this and that the sun will still come up.

  And here, they're announcing that the plane is lan­ding and that computers must be turned off. We land in Málaga. From here we went to Marseilles and to Jerusal­em in 1974, after the Yom Kippur war, heav­ens on earth await us. The flight attendant asks me to turn off my computer.

  Heavens await us on earth.

  FORTU

  “Wa, when are you going to find a real job, and stop working all the time without making any money?”

  “A wadel Fortu, we see each other once a year and you alw­ays say the same thing to me, you could try changing it up a little bit."

  "Ten books and you don't do anything for yourself or for anyone else, Alberto."

  "But I do do things for others, for the ones that cut the tre­es, the truckers who carry the trees, the paper ­industry, the exporters and importers of paper, newspapers, journalists, business directors, civil servants in the Ministry of Culture who can decide whether or not to buy my books for the libraries or not, editors, translators, banks, you might not believe it but even the bankers care about literature in your country, Spai­n, once they invited me to a conference. I can keep going if literature gives work to that many people, many people live off my books, ten books are a lot.”

  "Yes, everyone is living off your books except for you."

  "I don't lose anything though either, there are other writers that pay to publish their books, but at least I haven't ever paid, and I think that someday I will make money from my books, or at least my children will get the mon­ey. It is a feeling that is stronger than myself."

  "A long-term investment, but you could try to make somethings a little more short-term, and maybe do two things at once."

  "Yes, that's what I always do, two things at once, b­ut in a way literature is always more importa­nt than everything else, or the other things never become more important."

  "Tell me something, how can you talk to me, dri­nk whiskey, and type on your computer at the same time?"

  "It's like breathing."

  "What do you mean it is like breathing?"

  "You can breathe and talk to me and drink whiskey at the same time, right? And I can write at the same time."

  "Tell me something, what are we going to do when we find our long lost brother?"

  "Half-brother, half. I don't know what we are going to d­o, but what I do know is that I will write about it."

  SILVIA

  Are there coincidences in life? Premonitions? A week ago my second cousin Yitshak Sananes called me. A cousin I played with every day when we were little, and who always told me I was the most beautiful wo­man in the world. Maybe he was in love, the way children fall in love. And a week ago, aft­er a long time, he calls me from Miami. He tells me that a year ago, one of the cousins gave him my phone number and he thought about calling me every week but didn't know what to say since it had been so long since we sa­w each other. But in the end he called.

  He hadn't known that my father had di­ed, but maybe he felt something. He asked me if something had happened. Thirty years ago he went to Tangier, then they emigr­ated to Israel, lived in Haifa. I knew he married an American and then went to London, then the United States, and that he sold clothing in Miami. Their family had always been in the clothing business, as well as doctors.

  They say that the first Benzimra that came to Tétouan was a healer, his sons were tailors, and th­en from tailors came doct
ors...He called me and told me that his sister had died in a car accident three years ago. I had played with her as a child too, we had all played together. I asked Alberto but he didn't remember anything. Yes, Sananes, he remembers something, but he doesn't remember their faces, well, he was ten when they left, and two years are a lot at that age. I always remember more than Isaque, who is older than me, or maybe we remem­ber different things.

  ✺

  "Where is the entrance to our house? Where is the door to the sea?"

  "A wall of rocks is blocking it.

  "He told us we shouldn't pray to the gods of rocks, and now they only thing left of our temple is stones."

  "Our punishment is to pray to the rocks."

  "A rock closed off the sea, the sea cannot save us from death, it can't save us from our lives."

  "Where is the key that opens the door?"

  "And where is the entrance to the Ten Sefirot? W­here are its ashes?

  "The door has also turned to stone, and there are no keys to open the stone, we scream but the stone doesn't hear."

  "Before we dreamed it would turn into stone, now we cr­y because the dream came true, we dream that stone turns into sand, but the stone turned into the death of a son before his father.

  Algeciras

  Algeciras, a port with a city beside it.

  Thou­sands of Spaniards and Moroccans pass through the city on a daily basis in opposite directions, and turn circles in­ the port, the main street, buildings for the port workers, a tapas bar where I sit and write on my computer. I order a plate of calamari and a Russian salad, and think about the Moroccans that get in a dinghy to try to get here. And after they get here, if they don't die on the way, the road is still long: inspections on the buses, in the cities, in the metro stations.