The Last Friend

did they feel? There had to be at least one person my age dealing with the same anguish! I saw only people in obvious good health. Their bodies bore no pain. Even the old woman who had so much trouble walking was not sick. I was sure I was the only sick person in the entire city of Stockholm. Illness imposes an intense feeling of solitude. Ultimately, we are alone.

I needed to talk, to confide in someone. Above all, I knew I couldn't tell Ali. He would drop everything and come to take care of me. I would read the progression of the illness in his eyes. His face would become a mirror; I couldn't bear the thought. We knew each other too well to risk this. Ali was not a good actor, and he was incapable of lying or hiding his feelings. No, I couldn't tell him. My wife was already depressed. I would tell her after I began treatments. I walked into a bar. It was noon, time for the open-faced sandwiches and salads they eat in Sweden.

A man was sitting alone at the bar with a large glass of beer. I singled him out because he was around my age. He had to be between forty and forty-five. I spoke to him in the casual, superficial way people do in Sweden. He raised his glass. I ordered a glass of white wine. He was an engineer from Gothenburg whose work had brought him to Stockholm. He was exactly my age: forty-five. He was in good health. I told him I had just learned I had lung cancer. He raised his glass again, and patted me on the shoulder. He said nothing, but his eyes were full of sympathy.

I left the bar staggering, walking like an old man. I felt an intense desire to be near my mother, to go to her grave and talk to her. I had tears in my eyes. I coughed and it hurt. I was tired, troubled, with no desire for anything. I thought of all the food I liked, which I denied myself, for fear of getting fat: vanilla pastries, Moroccan cookies, glazed chestnuts, wholewheat bread covered with butter, fresh goat's cheese, grilled almonds, Arab dates filled with almonds, Turkish figs, fig jam, lemon tarts, foie gras, preserved duck-all fatal to the liver…

I felt nauseated. Nothing interested me anymore. I needed time to prepare myself for this blow and to find a way of dealing with it, this cruel assault that had been coming for a long time. Curiously, what I wanted was a cigarette, but I didn't have one on me. I thought about stopping someone on the street. No, that was it for cigarettes.

14

Without taking sleeping pills or tranquilizers, I slept soundly, not even getting up to urinate. I must have been either overwhelmed or relieved. I did not dream. My wife was surprised. She said I must be tired, that I must be getting sick, a bad flu or something, and I should consult our friend Dr. Lovgren. I could have chosen that moment to tell her the bad news, but I didn't dare. She was happy that morning; she was going off to her yoga class, and I didn't want to upset her.

I went to my office in the hospital, where we were evaluating a disastrous situation in Bangladesh. A strange parasite was attacking people's lungs. I was among those designated to investigate. I was eager to go, thinking it would distract me from my own problems, but Dr. Lovgren decided otherwise. His pretext was that he needed me in Sweden to help him analyze the data the other doctors in the team would be sending back. I realized then that my case was hopeless. When the two of us were alone, I asked him point-blank: 'How long do I have?' He said he wouldn't know anything until the end of the first chemotherapy treatment.

At the hospital where I was being treated, I met another Moroccan, as sick as I was. His name was Barnouss. He had removed the final 'i' from his name to appear more Nordic, but with his mop of black hair and dark complexion, it would have been obvious to anyone that he was Maghrebin. He was less worried than I was, and talked to me as if we were old friends. 'Here, my compatriot, I have confidence. It's important to have confidence in a country and its health system. That way, you're halfway to being cured. In Morocco, I have no confidence in the medical system. I'm sick even before I get sick. I mean, even the thought of finding myself in the hospital in Avicenne… bacteria aren't stupid. They don't want to be treated in a Moroccan hospital. They waited until I was in Sweden to show up. Here in Stockholm I can see a doctor, any doctor, with complete confidence. You know, when I'm on vacation down there, I avoid even aspirin. The medicines there always contain less than the prescribed dosage. Watch out for anything written in Arabic. Do you think that if it says a thousand units of penicillin there really are a thousand? They put in three or four hundred and write one thousand. I have proof. At the beginning I took Moroccan drugs. There was no effect, nothing. They don't work. They are crap, you understand? Such a beautiful country, and such shitty medicine! In this magnificent country, you find real Muslims. I mean Swedes who are really Protestant or Catholic, but they treat us as if they were Muslims. They are kind and generous, with a sense of solidarity. This country deserves to be Muslim. No, I don't mean fundamentalist. That's not Islam. That's political crap. In fact, the poor Swedes are afraid that Muslim fanatics will come here and ruin their nice peaceful country, and I can understand that. Tell me, how do you feel? Here, I guarantee you, you'll get better. In this country, they don't make a distinction between rich and poor, between Swedes and immigrants; everyone is treated the same, and I admire that. I say this because some of our fellow Moroccans are never satisfied, they complain, make a lot of noise, drink, and behave badly. They don't respect this country, and that's not good!'

I liked this guy's face. He reminded me of a camel. He was tall, with long arms. For all his babbling, I had no idea what he was suffering from. He was trying to be positive, but he spouted all kinds of garbage. It's not true that the medicine is less strong than the prescription says in Morocco. These were his biases, that's all. I would have liked to have this man's energy, his faith in progress, his passion for this cold country. I had too many doubts, another characteristic I shared with my friend Ali. It was that, more than anything else, which had brought us so close. I told myself I should stop comparing these two countries. They did not have the same history, climate, or fate. Even if Swedish medicine was remarkable, I wanted to go home to Morocco. How could I explain this need, this burning sensation, this clog that blocked everything in my chest? Before talking to Lovgren about this, or even to my wife, I called Ali. I didn't tell him I was sick; certainly not. I didn't want to worry him, to plunge him into despair. All I said was that I missed the wind from the east, I missed the dust of Tangier. He said he would send me some!

Two weeks later, two packages arrived from Ali. One was a hermetically sealed plastic bottle, labeled EAST WIND FROM TANGIER, APRIL 13, 1990. In the other was a small metal box full of gray powder: TANGIER DUST. He also sent fabric swatches for the curtains in our apartment. He continued to be busy with the decoration and remodeling. My heart was no longer in it. I needed good health, not curtains.

I continued to work, without slowing down much. I finally told my wife, who didn't say a word for twenty-four hours. She was unable to speak. She was distraught, defeated, pacing from room to room in our house. She hid, so she could cry alone. She called Dr. Lovgren, who reassured her. 'We'll fight this together,' he told her. She rallied. 'We can't let this damn thing get the better of us, destroying our marriage and our life together,' she said. 'We have the means to fight this. We will stay in this country and conquer it.'

She was strong. I held her in my arms with a feeling I had never experienced before. Our love had to be stronger than the disease.

15

I made up my mind. Ali would know nothing about my sickness. Moreover, Ali could no longer be my friend. The knowledge would destroy him, make him suffer. I did not need his suffering. The rupture between us would surprise him, but it would hurt him less in the long run. His friendship was too precious for me to abandon it to unhappiness, despair at the mercy of the interminable process of cell destruction. One thing was certain. I would never see his tortured face approach mine for a final good-bye. I would never see those eyes, filled with tears and memories, leaving me. Above all, I would not have to read my own distress on his face, a face so transparent that it could become cruel. If I survived, I would explain everything to him. If I disappeared, he would receive a letter after I died.

I thought about telling Ramon. He was like a brother, and I always had a good time with him. I needed levity, laughter, lightness. With Ramon, all of that was possible. Our relationship was not deep enough for him to become