Si l-Habib smiled. “ Where is the key?”
I remembered that he had given it to me that morning, when I escorted al-Jaza’iri’s relative. I began to search in my pocket among several keys for the three apartments, which I had mistakenly copied in a drunken state.
“I want you to come with me.”
“But I’m drunk.”
“You don’t look it. Come on.”
At his gentle touch, I moved opposite him. The intensity of the sun had abated. I was full of wine that was working calmly and effectively inside me; that made me fear going up to my room, where the most beautiful devil a man could dream of slumbered on my bed. Since there was nothing else to talk about, Si l-Habib asked me how I had spent my time since leaving him in the morning. Had I been in any other state, I would have thought about what he was getting at. The sun was filling the tall trees with its extract, foaming yellow.
I did not tell him that I had been forced to go to Casablanca to copy the key, which I had lost. Leaving that afternoon I had been distracted by two intertwined matters: the first was that Si l-Habib avoid the trap into which the devil had announced she would take him, and the second was my strong desire for her, the wish that occupied my whole vision, to have her under any conditions. I had wanted to be alone with my thoughts as I walked. But with a sense of defeat dictated by constant failure in long struggles on many fronts, I found myself at Si l-Baqqali’s place, with his three young Casablancan girls, when I should have been at the repair shop whose address the Chinaman had given me, after issuing a strong warning that this was the last time he would lend me the master key.
I had not found any girls, just a dark young man from Marrakesh; he had a large mustache and good features, and he had reached a state of extreme emotional disintegration. I asked al-Baqqali about the girls with a motion of my eyes, and he pointed to the shower where they were all washing of the salt after their return from the sea, in a small bathroom. The Marrakeshi clinked my glass twice in succession, contrary to custom. Since I was afraid the repair shop would close, I finished my first glass and got up, promising to return. But the Marrakeshi, whose intimate friend I had become after those two immortal drinks of wine, became extremely alarmed at my attempt to leave. He was afraid I would get away after this meeting, which for some reason seemed historic to him; so he insisted on taking me on his motorcycle to a workshop which, he asserted confidently, was no more than five minutes away at most. Since his eyes were blazing with an alcoholic fire, and it wouldn’t have surprised me to hear he had been battling it for several successive nights, I thought he might use force against me if I refused the generous offer of a very dignified young man. I tried in vain to enlist the help of my friend al-Baqqali against this unjustified persecution, but at that point he had given way to his passion for the oldest of the three girls, who had just emerged from the bathroom. They filled the little house with their sweet laughter, dispersing it with drops of water that fell from their hair, and with their exciting flirtation.
I realized as I went out that the lash of the sun would fall directly on my head; I hated to combine the sun and wine on summer afternoons. A large number of snails had retreated to the shadow under the leaves of the linden trees which shaded the walkway of the narrow street in front of the house.
“Hold onto me.”
I clasped my hands over his belly and the motorcycle took of. Fear paralyzed me as I attached my life to a motorcycle racing the wind, driven by a drunkard lost in alcohol and love.
To my great surprise everything the Marrakeshi had said was true. The large repair shop, deafening with the work of innumerable great machines and workers absorbed in their tasks, was a monster that swallowed up tranquility and assaulted the mind, making alcoholic transports a heavy burden on civilization.
We were greeted by a lively young man, short and dark-complexioned, covered in grease and iron filings. He hesitated to shake the Marrakeshi’s hand, but the latter attacked him with an embrace. When he learned why we had come he made light of the matter, and I gave him the two other keys (the ones for Si l-Habib’s apartment and for al-Jaza’iri’s), as a precaution.
During the short time it took to copy them I went to smell the flowers in the courtyard of the workshop. They were varied, planted with skill and care, and they had a penetrating aroma; I resorted to them as a natural reaction, to cure me of the headache of the huge machines. For some reason the picture of the playful devil danced before me, as I was enraptured by the beauty of a red rose aflame in the sunlight.
“Here you are, Si l-Sharqi.”
We returned to the Casablanca girls in less than a quarter of an hour. They were drying their hair flirtatiously, virgins who were proud because they had something on which depended the fate of many residents of the world, in one way or another.
As we surrounded the round table, the Marrakeshi cried, “ We are three and you are three!”
The oldest one, who had enchanted al-Baqqali, was not more than seventeen, slender, dark complexioned, and glowing. The sea had enhanced her charm with a bronze, wine-dark color; water dripped from her face, which made me think she had returned to the shower for a second time, and she had wrapped her black hair in a blue towel. Her black eyes were shining with additional temptation, and her eyebrows terminated in precise points, which at first I thought she has drawn. In the kitchen under the gaze of al-Baqqali, she had behaved with the freedom of one who owned the place because of her possession of its owner. Her eyes and her expressive movements were full of coquetry and pride. The two others were younger by a year or two. One of them was fair, firm, and pretty; the other was without any attraction except for her ample breasts, in a body which otherwise resembled that of an adolescent boy. They were vying with each other in preparing a light meal of eggs, sardines, dried meat, and vegetables. Their carefree bursts of laughter and suggestive whisperings were mixed with bewildering secret commentaries that made a man wish he could be honored by listening to just one of those secrets, perfumed with their excitement.
Before they finished preparing the meal, the fair, firm girl had walked to the corner of the window and faced the small garden. It was divided by a concrete walkway about a yard wide, and its flowers and grass sprang up untrimmed. The rays of the sun penetrated the tree leaves washed by dew, showing their networks of veins, lightening the dark green color of the leaves to a fascinating mix of herbaceous yellows. The girl put her hand on her forehead and leaned against the wall, as if she suffered from a slight headache. The moist sea breeze provided from time to time, as it touched my hot forehead, a pleasant coolness that I loved, and that would help me overcome the heat of the day, which was only intensified by the alcohol.
The chairs Si l-Baqqali had were not enough, so we brought the table over to the bed where the Marrakeshi sat. The four chairs encircled it. Since it was necessary to drink a toast before the meal, as we began the drinking party again, we drank to Casablancan love. The dark girl sat on al-Baqqali’s knees with a natural flirtatiousness, twining her right arm around his neck and lifting his drink to him in her hand, despite his insistence that she drink first. Instead she leaned over him longingly and finished the drink in the glass, while the other two drank only a few deceptive drops. During the meal, as the talk flowed amid sharp sexual tension, laughter, and sly winks, we drank more of the famous red wine.
The words began to come out of al-Marrakeshi’s mouth somewhat thickly, the r becoming a ghain like the Parisian r. In fact his mouth, protected by his huge mustache, involuntarily began to shell us with many words of français in a wave of such irresistible charm that the girls, who thought they were in a school competition, all at once abandoned their mother tongue and plunged into a noisy dispute in French. When Si l-Baqqali tried to join in with the one foreign language he spoke well (Spanish, as was usual among the northerners, who had been forced to learn it in school), he found a negligible response. He must have thought hard before he raised his glass to his mouth and finished making himself drunk. Then he began to kiss his girl on her neck. She tried to slip away at first, then closed her eyes for a while, melting in pleasure; the two others kept stealing glances at her, laughing in shy desire.