How difficult it is to wake up in the morning in Tangier! Everybody who visited the city knows that very well. Tangier has her own climate and atmosphere that make you wish to stay longer in bed. They say the Tangierian are lazy. The truth is they are the outcomes of their surroundings, and they have no hand in that.
The amazing night in Tangier makes people stay up late at night. Her sleepy morning makes people stay in bed for an hour or two.
She is a pampered city that insists on pampering her people, too. They could not decline her wish or refuse her requests.
Khaled dragged himself out of his bead heavily. What kind of dates at 8 o’clock? Khaled washed his face with cold water hoping it would wake him up. His cat that was cured of her lameness was waiting for a surprising, early morning meal. Khaled poured her some cold milk. He put on his clothes hastily and left his home.
Saidi Café was not completely empty as he expected. There were some passer-by workers and some customers were watching an Indian movie in which the hero annihilated an entire nation without exerting any effort as if he was on picnic.
Had he entered this café in the past, most eyes would have turned to him being a ‘soft, white man’ who ventured to enter a tough place that did not suit him. They would have utterly disapproved of that. However, prison seemed to have placed on him an unrecoverable mark that could be seen on his face.
It was 8 o’clock. He realized for the first time that he did not know the name of appearance of the man he had called. Nevertheless, it was certain the other man would be able to recognize him being a new face in the café.
At last the awaited man appeared. He dragged a chair, sat down near Khaled and ordered a cup of coffee with milk.
Khaled shouted in the ear of that man drawing the attention of the café customers. Confusion and the effect of surprise took over Khaled’s companion. He cleared his throat, swallow his saliva, and said in a different tone doing his best to make it sound as friendly and brotherly as possible,
Khaled restored the personality he acquired in the prison. He felt that if he ever revealed a sign of kindness with that man, he would swallow him as a piece of cake. He would maneuver him, lie to him, steal his money, overfill him with insolence and impoliteness.
Khaled started to think that he was suffering from dissociative identity disorder. He himself did not feel how he suddenly turned from a quiet person to a savage one.
Khaled and twenty other people rode a medium bus from Manar area.The moon was full, but it only appeared timidly every now and then behind thick clouds. It had an ugly smile. One cannot distinguish whether it was smiling or frowning. Moon changes the moods of people whenever it becomes full. When it’s completely full, wolves bark and lovers meet in its light.Tt frowns for some people and smiles for others.
Khaled watched it from a nearby window, and his thoughts drifted far, faraway.
This time he did not tell Aziza Rahma about his destination. He only asked her to take care of his cat and apartment until he would return. He did not give her the chance to ask or bid him goodbye.
He decided there would no longer be any goodbye moments; everything should be carried out quickly and decisively. He decided to let those feelings accumulate inside him until they, or he, would explode one day.
He told Mahdi and Munir about his intention without any further details including the date of his travel.
Travel? He smiled wryly. What a travel on a rubber ‘Batera’ boat in the sea. It was most probably a no-return journey. He used to read about secret migration and pity those migrants. He was doing it now.
How different situations and the passage of time change people’s beliefs! Only dumb people think they are safe from the vicissitudes of time.
He was aware that he would not be able to recover his passport that they took from him in Belgium. Even if he extracted a new one, he would face the Schengen visa obstacle which was impossible to obtain following what happened. Even if they did, it would take a very long time which would be sufficient to weaken his will, and the schemers and their accomplices would have run away with their loot. It was a thing that he could not bear.
The vehicle stopped in an area where the mountain sloped into narrow, sandy beach surrounded with rocks in either side. The previous middleman told him the beach was called Marisa Di Almaaz and the village was called Hasana.
The driver ordered them to get off, ‘go directly to the beach. You’ll find Si Maymoun waiting for you’.
Si Maymoun, as could be inferred from the instructions, was the captain of the boat. From that moment on,he was the supreme leader. They descended the cliff consecutively. They headed to the direction of some intermittent flashes of light.
They crowded in a narrow boat. Khaled checked that he had not lost his plastic bag, yet. He touched the amount of money he had attached to his body with a duct tape. It was everything left from his journey to Belgium in addition to Tranquility’s gift which he changed into 10€ banknotes so that he guaranteed it would not get lost without noticing that. He could feel its weight in that bag around his breast.
The engine roared, and the boat started moving. Si Maymoun said to them that he was intelligent because nobody would expect ‘harik’ under a full moon. All people choose dark nights, whereas he went against the norm and chose a moonlit, yet cloudy, night so that he would fool the coast guards and take advantage the darkness of the cloudy night.
The sea was calm and Tangier was becoming farther and farther. This was a lump in Khaled’s throat and heart, but he resisted. For the first time he started gazing at the faces of the people with him under the light of the moon that was appearing and hiding.
One fourth of them were Moroccans, and the rest were from the sub-Sahara countries. There were three women. One of them drew his attention; her belly was visibly rounded. She was definitely pregnant. He thought that she was about to give birth instantly.
One of them was humming some African song. Khaled could not understand anything, but he felt it… it was about estrangement, pain, loneliness, and the harsh homeland. You do not need a translator to understand that. The melancholy in his voice was sufficient.
Silence engulfed them again. The noise of the engine alone played the symphony of life…or death.