Communist Party, but the Party is legal, after all.'
Mamed's look was a mixture of pride and sadness. Even after everything he had been through, he seemed strong. He hugged me tightly, and whispered in my ear, 'Did you screw a lot in Quebec?' I burst out laughing. The other prisoners were not from Tangier. Some of them were common criminals who couldn't understand what we were doing there. 'You didn't sell a kilo of hashish? You've never stolen anything? You never even hit one of those bastard cops?' For them, politics was an abstraction. Another prisoner, an older guy who appeared to be one of the leaders, asked: 'What's politics anyway? Do you want to be ministers, and have a car with a chauffeur? You want a secretary in a short skirt, you want to smoke cigars and be on TV? When we get out, I'll get you all that. Not the title of minister, but everything else. You're decent guys. You went to school and even then they arrested you! It's crazy. This country is in trouble. I mean, things are going well, but they're making some serious mistakes. All you two did is talk. You could never kill anybody. You're too soft, too polite, too well brought up. You're no threat to anyone. I don't understand what the hell you're doing here… This country is in trouble.'
The guy was about fifty, and he was sure he would be released within the week. Sure enough, the guards came in one day and told him he was free. He was not a political threat; he was just a drug trafficker exporting Moroccan marijuana to Europe. When he left, he winked at us, as if to say we would see each other soon. He just had time to tell us his name, or rather his nickname, 'Blondy,' and that he hung out at the Cafe Central in the Socco, the little square that was the nerve center of the medina in Tangier.
Mamed and I spent two weeks in that prison, and then we were transferred to a disciplinary army boot camp, where we stayed for eighteen months and fourteen days without a trial. One morning, an officer came to see us and told us we had to sign a letter asking King Hassan II to pardon us. Very bravely, Mamed asked why. 'We haven't done anything. We haven't committed any crimes that need to be pardoned.' The officer told Mamed he was stubborn as a mule, and that he reminded him of his son, who also questioned everything. 'Here you are lucky enough that our beloved king-may Allah glorify him and grant him a long life-is in a good mood, and you have the nerve to talk back? Come on, sign it. Otherwise you'll be accused of disobedience to our beloved king-may Allah glorify him and grant him a long life-and then things get serious, very serious. You're lucky I'm such a nice guy. If you'd ended up with El Lobo, the Wolf, you'd be counting how many teeth you had left.'
Mamed glanced at me. I nodded my head. We signed our names at the bottom of a piece of paper from the Ministry of Justice. One thing was certain: the king didn't even know we existed. Whether we asked for a pardon or for the hand of his daughter in marriage, the result would be the same. We didn't exist.
8
Those nineteen months of incarceration disguised as military service sealed our friendship forever. We became serious, older-seeming, more mature. Our discussions were more focused, even if we prided ourselves on a certain lightness, on our senses of humor. Now we talked about women with a sort of detachment and respect.
The food in the camp was so disgusting that I would hold my nose and swallow it fast. One day, it went down the wrong tube, and I almost choked to death. Mamed saved my life. He yelled as loud as he could for help, pounding me on the back. I turned blue and almost stopped breathing. Mamed's screams were so urgent that eventually the guards believed it was really an emergency, and they called a doctor. I was in Mamed's arms; I heard him begging me not to die. Thanks to him and his quick reflexes, I survived.
Another time, Mamed was the one who got sick. He had terrible stomach cramps. He was doubled up in pain, vomiting a greenish liquid. We had no medicine or drinking water. He had a high fever and was shaking like a leaf. It was the middle of the night and nobody came, even though we called for h elp. I massaged his stomach until morning. He fell asleep while I kept massaging. The next morning, he was transported to the camp infirmary, and then to a hospital, where he stayed for more than a week. He came back pale and thin. He saw that I had been worried about him. As if to reassure me, he told me we were linked in life and death, and that nothing and no one could ever destroy our friendship.
We paid off Llrange, a decent guard, to bring us notebooks and pencils. We decided to keep a journal. Claiming he was not much of a writer, Mamed dictated his thoughts to me. It became clear that we did not have the same perception of time, or of the life we were leading within those four walls. He told me about a female ogre with plastic teeth who visited him at the same time every day, with whom he talked about his future. He made up all sorts of crazy stories. If he hadn't been sick, he might have been taken for a surrealist. But though he had a sense of form, he lacked the vocabulary.
9
After we got out of prison, neither of us was ever the same. Despite our appeals to high-ranking officials, we couldn't get our passports renewed to leave the country. We were still being punished. The royal pardon had not restored all of our personal freedoms. One morning, soon after our release, we met our old friend Ramon in the hammam. He liked the Moorish baths. We told him we needed women immediately. He took care of everything, even paying for the women. Unfortunately, it seemed our sex organs were still traumatized by our incarceration. I felt bad about it. Ramon tried to reassure me, saying this often happened to him. I knew he was lying to make me feel better. The wine was OK, the girls were nice, but we were completely out of our element.
Mamed decided to go back to medical school in Rabat, the capital. I decided to give up film studies to enroll in the Faculty of Arts, and major in history and geography. 'It's the writing of the Earth,' one of our professors said, explaining the word 'geography.' He added that the Earth also writes the story of humanity.
Student activism was widespread, but Mamed and I no longer wanted to be involved. We were considered 'veteran conspirators,' and the secret police watched our every move. Mamed trusted no one. That didn't stop him from spending time with a guy who was short, ugly, and dirty, but intelligent. This guy was curious about everything, and he went out of his way to help Mamed. I had a bad feeling about him. He was too friendly to be honest. I asked him about his job. He was vague and secretive. He claimed to work for an advertising company. In fact, he was really a cop. We found this out later when the Ministry of the Interior appointed him head of the censorship bureau. The whole thing made Mamed sick. He couldn't get over it. He was mad at himself for having been taken in. 'To think he talked to me about Kant, Heidegger, film, and art, plus he was such an ardent critic of the government and the police!' Later, this spy made a career in intelligence. His dream was to be a writer. He wrote a few lines of poetry, published them at his own expense, and distributed them to government agencies. On a Moroccan television show, he was introduced as a promising young Francophone writer.
The undercover agent had clearly been jealous of our friendship. Mamed listened to him without taking him seriously, but continued seeing him, until the guy made the mistake of criticizing me and my family.
10
Mamed married ghita even before he finished the course-work for his medical specialization in pulmonology. His parents were upset, and they asked me to do my best to convince him to wait. They considered me Mamed's best friend, someone he held in great esteem. Not surprisingly, I had no luck with Mamed. He was stubborn, and became resentful whenever anyone tried to make him change his mind. This rigidity annoyed me. We avoided talking about it, because when we did, he lost his sense of humor and even his ability to think straight. One day, after a discussion in which he had to admit he was wrong, he became unusually angry, saying: 'Sometimes I wonder why we're friends, since we never agree about anything.' I didn't take this comment seriously. He wasn't making any sense. For once I was the one to bring up his faults, something he never hesitated to do with me. We never seemed able to give each other a break. But somehow things were never even.
Mamed and Ghita s wedding took place as planned. I was the couples closest friend. Ghita, a pretty brunette,
