I could have launched into the argument right then and there, but I was a coward. I looked at him with tears in my eyes. I wanted to cry for myself, my plight, the things I was setting in motion. I bowed my head to avoid showing my feelings. I backed out of the dinner he had prepared for us that night. I said it was fatigue and malaise. Ali offered to come and keep me company. I discouraged him, and promised we would see each other the next day.
Ghita told me again that Ali's wife was jealous. "I don't like the way she looks at our children. She can't stand the idea of not having any of her own, even if Nabil is so cute," she said. "You don't think so? You think I'm wrong? You should trust my intuition. This friend of yours, the one you're always putting on a pedestal…" I told her to stop. I would not allow her to judge thirty years of friendship. It was not her problem. She needed to show some respect.
Ghita's comments upset me and I couldn't sleep. I put off the confrontation with Ali. I don't know why, but I wanted to let Ramon know what was going on. I called him, and we talked for a long time. He listened without saying anything.
When we got back to Stockholm, I slept for two days straight. The fatigue, the grief, the sorrow, the feeling of having made an irreparable mistake, all that in the midst of my illness. I was completely confused. Everything was mixed up-good and evil, goodwill and guilt, the stench of jealousy, and the genuine desire to spare my friend my anguish. The certainty of approaching "the dark void," as my grandfather called it, preoccupied me night and day. I became obsessed with the damp ground in which my body would lie forever. Everything brought me back to this devastating thought.
I received several letters from Ali. I forced myself to answer them brusquely, without emotion. I turned this page of my life painfully, and at the same time wondered whether it had been a good idea. To calm my nerves, I drafted my posthumous letter to Ali.
III Ramon
A long-standing witness to this friendship, I found myself involved in its dissolution. I refused to pass judgment on this sad affair. Mamed told me his version of the story. Ali did the same. I understood that it was not simply a question of differing points of view.
Ravaged by illness, told by the doctors that his condition was terminal, Mamed decided to return to his country to die. He called me the day before he arrived, and asked me not to tell anyone. I met him and his wife and children at the airport. His withered face was stark testimony to the advanced disease. They moved into Mamed's parents' old house. He slept in his mothers bed, and stopped taking the medicine Dr. Lovgren had said was useless at this point. He closed his eyes and waited for death to take him. In Morocco, we say that you can see death in a person's eyes forty days before it comes. Ghita was distraught, but she managed to appear strong. She told her children Swedish fairy tales to prepare them for the loss and void ahead. I went to see Mamed twice a day. I told Ghita I would do the shopping and take care of the children.
As soon as Mamed learned that his case was hopeless, he had a passionate desire to leave Sweden in order to die in the family home. He believed Moroccan soil was better suited to the dead than the glacial soil of Scandinavia. He no longer had the energy to compare the two countries, to criticize everything that didn't work in Morocco. He wanted to stand once more on the soil of the country he carried in his heart.
His parents' house was in a state of terrible disrepair. His father lived there alone, surrounded by his history books and an address book in which many of the names had been crossed out. An old peasant woman came to clean once in a while. The old man said nothing, waiting for the end of his days with the faith of a good Muslim who had already put his life in Allah's hands. He forgot to take his medicine, convinced that everything was already determined in heaven, and that after a lifetime of reading, now it was time for prayer.
Seeing his son was a shock. He was confronted with a man who looked as old as he was. He wept silently, citing a verse of the Koran that says everything happens according to Allah's will. Despite their suffering, different in intensity, father and son felt a need to communicate. I knew Mamed did not have a religious bone in his body. When he was fifteen, he would sneak out of the house to eat during Ramadan, either at Ali's house or mine. He did believe in some kind of higher spirituality, and he liked Islamic mystic poetry, especially by Sufi Ibn Arabi. I stayed there, trying to make myself scarce, witnessing this final coming together of father and son. When I got up to leave, Mamed signaled me to stay.
Mamed's father believed that the mystics made the divine spirit into an idol, which some even dared confuse with Allah. Mamed did not contradict him, and enjoyed their conversations. They realized that they had rarely had the opportunity to talk to each other. "How are you, my son?" his father asked. "I don't mean your health, which is in Allah's hands, but in general. How was life in Sweden? You know, I wanted to visit you there. I used to dream about Scandinavia. For me, it represented honesty, social justice, democracy. But maybe I'm wrong. Some people hold up Britain as an example, but a country that colonized other countries can never be an example for others. You know, my son, I was tempted to get involved in politics when Morocco became independent, but I quickly realized we weren't ready for democracy. Not that we didn't deserve it, but we needed to be taught what democracy is. We had to learn to live together. Democracy is not simply a question of putting your ballot in a ballot box. It takes time. It's a culture that needs to be learned.
"How are things with your wife?" he went on. "No problems, I hope? Well, everybody has them, of course. I can tell you want to rest now. If you don't mind, I'll read some verses from the Koran so you'll sleep peacefully. Afterward, we can listen to some music. I know you like Mozart, don't you? Mozart couldn't have been Moroccan. The proof is that we have no one of his caliber."
He sat on the edge of his son's bed, watching him and reading the Koran. Then he prayed silently. Mamed fell asleep, forgetting the music. I prayed, too.
Mamed slept badly, thrashing around as if fighting demons in a nightmare. He was struggling against death, which was fast approaching him with open arms.
Ghita divided her time between her husband and her children. Most of the time, she had to leave the children with a cousin who ran a private school. She answered the telephone, and politely refused most visitors. "Mamed is tired. As soon as he feels better, he'll come to visit you." When Ali called, Ghita paused, hesitated, looked at me, then went and whispered in her husband's ear. Then she spoke into the phone: "I'm sorry, Ali," she said. "He doesn't want to see anyone. It's best to respect his wishes. If he saw you, it might make him worse. Good-bye." She looked at me again, as if to make me an accomplice. I lowered my eyes, as if I hadn't understood what she had said.
I imagined Ali, tears in his eyes, a look of defeat on his face, despair in his heart. He must have been thinking: "But this is when he needs me. This is the most important moment in our friendship, whatever differences and misunderstandings we've had. I have to see him. I must tell him that my love is sincere, pure, even if he was mistaken about me, even if his wife did everything in her power to separate us. At the same time, I know him. When he's sick, he doesn't want anyone to see him. I remember when he got sick in the disciplinary camp, he asked me to turn out the light, so people couldn't see his tired face, wracked with fever. Today, it's much more serious. If he came home to Morocco, it's because there is no more hope. I absolutely must see him, unless… maybe it's better this way. Perhaps he wants me to preserve the image of a lively, happy Mamed, at peace with himself. Or maybe he's angry with me. But why? Because I will outlive him? Could it be that simple? No, Mamed isn't like that. I can't believe it."