“Here? Are you sure? There’s still a long way to go. I could take you a bit closer. No one will see us.”

  “No, no, it’s better if I get out here.”

  “But isn’t it dangerous? I don’t want to leave you alone in the middle of all these fields.”

  “Dangerous?” Aïcha smiled. “This is my farm, remember. Nothing can happen to me here. I know this place like the back of my hand. Even in total darkness, I’d be able to find my way home.”

  There was no cinematic kiss, no tearful farewell. Mehdi hugged Aïcha then watched her walk away as he stood next to the car. She jumped over a fence and her graceful figure eventually vanished into a line of trees. Mehdi remained motionless. He couldn’t bring himself to get back in the car and drive away. He looked at the rows of olive trees and started imagining the little girl Aïcha had once been. He saw her, a child, running through fields, and he could picture her face as it had been, her grazed knees, her headstrong expression, her small round-nailed hands covered in nettle stings. He even thought he could hear her laughter ring out, her little-girl laughter, and spot her thin, agile body swaying on a tree branch. He felt then as if he had always known her. That little girl was no stranger to him, and nor was the teenager she had been afterward. A serious, austere teenager, fully focused on the tough business of growing up. She had been his soulmate forever and all the years he had lived without her seemed to him like lost years, pointless and wasted. Not only was he in love with her, this woman he knew now, but also all the Aïchas she had been before and all the Aïchas she would later become. He smoked cigarette after cigarette, sitting in his car with the door open. Some peasants walked past and greeted him suspiciously. Mehdi didn’t care. This woman, and the intensity of the love he felt for her, proved that he had been right to believe in the greatness of his destiny. Yes, an extraordinary destiny awaited him, a destiny in which Aïcha would take center stage, and not for a second, sitting there in his Simca, did Mehdi consider that he was trespassing. That he was on the property of another, richer, more powerful man who could have him removed if he wished. No, he didn’t think any of that. He was filled with happiness, with an unshakable serenity. At last he stubbed out his cigarette, closed the car door, and set off.

  * * *

  • • •

  He drove slowly along the dirt path. The estate struck him now as even bigger and more impressive than it had the first time. He kept driving and found himself at a dead end, facing an immense hangar sheltering a row of agricultural machines. He put his car into reverse and almost ran over a man who was jogging toward him. The farmworker came up to the car and put his callused hand on the door.

  “Where are you going, kid? Are you lost?”

  “I’m looking for the house. I want to see the owner.”

  “Sidi Belhaj is in his office. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  The farmworker began jogging forward again and Mehdi followed him, feeling slightly intimidated. Soon the house appeared. The high palm tree, the storehouse, and, behind a hedge, the swimming pool edged by red bricks. Mehdi stopped for a moment and observed the tall blond woman standing next to the water. She was wearing a mauve swimsuit and beneath her very white skin she was as muscular as a young man. She raised her arms, brought her hands together and dived in. Mathilde.

  “Aren’t you coming?” asked the farmworker impatiently. “It’s just here.” The man half opened the glass door, holding his woolen hat in one hand. “Boss. There’s someone to see you.”

  The first thing Mehdi saw when he entered the office was the portrait of Hassan II hanging on the wall. It felt as if the king was watching him, mocking him. A second later his attention switched to Amine, sitting in a leather chair. He was a handsome man, Mehdi thought, nothing like the vulgar, potbellied peasant he had imagined. On the contrary, with his finely sculpted mustache, he looked more like a film star. Mehdi held out his hand and introduced himself.

  “Hello, monsieur. My name is Mehdi Daoud.”

  “And what can I do for you, Monsieur Daoud?”

  “Well, I’ve come to ask for the hand of your daughter, Aïcha.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Amine was stunned. He put his hands on his desk and stood up, ready to attack this insolent young man.

  “Is this a joke?”

  “No, not at all. I have come to ask for Aïcha’s hand in marriage,” Mehdi said, his voice embarrassingly high-pitched.

  “What are you talking about? Who even are you? Mehdi Daoud, you said? My daughter has never even mentioned you.”

  “I am an economics lecturer at the Mohammed V University in Rabat. I intend to apply to become the dean of the law school and I am currently working on a book about—”

  “Are you out of your mind? Did my daughter put you up to this?”

  “Oh no, not at all. Your daughter had nothing to do with it. She doesn’t even know I’m here. My intentions are extremely serious, Monsieur Belhaj.”

  Amine turned to the corridor that led to the house and yelled “Aïcha!” so loud that Mehdi recoiled. She was there. And in a moment or two she would appear at the door and she would see what Mehdi was capable of. She would be swept away by his courage and the romantic nature of his actions. She would persuade her father and they would be married here, in this farm, under the high palm tree.

  Aïcha appeared. She walked barefoot toward her father, like a guilty child ready to be punished. When she saw Mehdi, her eyes widened. She looked very angry.

  “Do you know this young man?” Amine demanded.

  Aïcha lowered her eyes.

  “He says he knows you. So have you met him before or not?”

  “Yes, I know him. Monette introduced me to him.”

  “All right. Well, guess what? This boy came here to ask for your hand in marriage. What do you say to that?”

  “What?” Aïcha said, almost shouting. Her cheeks were bright red and she could feel the blood beating at her temples.

  “Are you behind this little scheme?”

  “No, not at all!”

  “You mean you didn’t know about it or you mean you don’t want to marry him?”

  “I mean . . . I don’t know!”

  “How can you not know? You think I’m an idiot?” Amine looked at the two of them, suppressing a smile. “I don’t have time for all this. Work out what you both want and we can talk about it later. Now get out of here. Go on, out of my sight!”

  Rabat, November 19, 1970

  Aïcha,

  The storks have returned. They fly around in the permanently blue sky over Rabat, they fly in circles above the river, above the roofs of the medina, they build enormous nests in dead trees and those piles of rocks in the ruins of the Chellah, and I have the feeling that they are signaling to me. I often go to the necropolis to watch them soar around, with their red beaks and their white bodies and their huge black wings, the flight feathers spaced out like combs. I observe their reflections on the muddy waters of the Bou Regreg. Sometimes they swoop so low that I feel I could reach out and touch them. I am captivated above all by the sound they make. I listen to them endlessly calling, as if they have a message to deliver to me. They came from you in a straight line, from your green and cold Alsace, gliding without a single beat of wings, perched on clouds. I try frantically to decipher the message that you have given them to deliver to me. Because surely you have something to say to me even if you don’t reply to my letters. You preferred to send me these ambassadors to announce your return. I’m right, aren’t I? The storks are your scouts. If they have come all this way, then you will too. Aïcha, it’s not over between us.

  I know from Monette that you are still in Strasbourg, that you are renting an apartment above someone called David. I called your number and I think it was him who answered, but how can I know if he even told you about my call? Does he know who I am? Have you told him about me? And then I wonder: who is he for you?

  My heart is weary, my stomach is in knots. My thoughts are no longer anything more than a letter I am writing. My head is filled with a mountain of words all for you. It is a blundering, endless process, an obsession that pursues me even into sleep. I am haunted, Aïcha, haunted by the mistake I made, by the thought of what we had begun to experience, our love that was cut short by my ridiculous approach to your father. I want to believe that you are, like me, in a state of painful confusion. I wish I could hold you in my arms, forget the thunderclap of your departure, and tell you that nothing can ever separate us, not even you. Because I can’t stop myself hoping. Nothing and nobody can fill the void you have left in my life. I should build a nest in that void where I can sleep through my grief, where I can hibernate like a bear, bathed in the eternal summer of my soul. I can still feel your eyes on me, as real and invisible as the wind on my skin.

  Surely you can’t be this angry with me. I was wrong, I admit it. Perhaps you thought I wanted to buy you from your father like a head of cattle? I surrendered to a mad impulse, without asking you, because I was so sure of the love that filled me like hot air and carried me far above all ordinary considerations. Everything seemed so simple from up there; I felt as if nothing could stop this force. Your father would smile and give me his consent, and you and I would take off together toward the brilliant future that was promised to us. I had not even the shadow of a doubt, believe me. It was just a question of momentum and the sky would open up, revealing our dazzling destiny. Everyone calls me Karl Marx, after all: glorious futures are my specialty.

  I was vain enough to believe that you shared this faith in my powers, Aïcha. I thought I was being admirably courageous and determined, but instead of those qualities you saw in my attitude arrogance, brutality, the desire for possession. You were right on that last point: I wanted you to belong to me. I wanted to make sure that no one other than me would ever hold your hand or embrace you or breathe in your smell. When you were there, when I touched you, when I talked to you, when I listened to you, when I dreamed of you, I had the feeling that my love made you even more beautiful, carried you toward yourself, toward the pure beauty that is within you. How glorious you were, caressed by my hands, by my eyes! That pretension oppresses me now. The memory of the taste of your lips, the smell of your skin, our kisses, is a poison that burns me.

  I walk endlessly, aimlessly. I go to the end of the kasbah to look out at the sea that separates us, as if I might be able to spot you: isn’t that you, that little dot on the horizon, and aren’t you waving to me? The rest of the time, I watch my life take place as if I were a spectator, or rather as if it had not yet begun.

  Let me give you some news from your homeland. In three months I have taught only three or four classes. The students are in such a fervor that they keep going on strike, which at least gives me time to read, go for walks, and think. I applied for the position of assistant dean. Unfortunately the dean does not like me as much as he likes all the fawners that surround him. When I told him about my plan to write a thesis on the psychological consequences of underdevelopment, he laughed in my face. There is no intellectual life in this country anymore. Everything is stunted, restricted, disappointing. They have replaced philosophy with Islamic studies; the Institute of Sociology has been closed. If I had been born in France or America, I could have been interested in something other than politics, I could have written my poems without having to justify myself to anyone, without having to endure the sermonizing of these so-called revolutionaries. Last night I went to Jour et Nuit with Abdellah and the gang. Abdellah was more fanatical than ever. He spends his time in the Chinese and Cuban embassies. The other night he dragged me to hear a speech by Alejo Carpentier, which I found so much more subtle, appealing, and rousing than all our tinpot Che Guevaras. Ronit isn’t wrong when she says it would not be good to live in a country run by men like Abdellah. I know what you’re going to say. Not so long ago I was stuffed full of theories too, convinced that I could write a book that would change the world. What madness! Becoming a starving artist, going out into the desert to preach . . . None of this is going to help me. I have thought about it a lot and I have other plans now. Please listen to me, Aïcha: I feel certain that an extraordinary destiny awaits me. You are the first person I have dared say this to, and it doesn’t matter if you are rolling your eyes now, wondering if I am arrogant or just naive. I could not explain why, but I can tell I am fundamentally different from most people of my generation. I sense a unique strength within me, and I am telling you now that this strength will carry me far and that you will be with me, I know it. So there you go, now you can have a good laugh. And I will laugh with you, even though I am perfectly serious.

  I have a story about Roland Barthes for you. As you know, I often eat dinner at La Pagode, the Chinese restaurant below my apartment. Well, the other night a man came in, an elegant-looking European with white hair and a slightly sad face that struck me as familiar. He was with a tiny elderly woman—his mother, I presume. The next day I saw the old lady in the stairwell of my apartment building. I realized that she lives on the floor above mine. I checked the letterbox in the lobby and saw the tenant’s name: “Roland Barthes.” Can you believe it? Everyone here talks about him. At the university the other lecturers are proud that such a famous man should be giving classes here in Rabat. The students couldn’t care less, of course: all they think about is strikes and general assemblies. You will think me ridiculous, but I went through all my articles, carefully rereading and revising them, then put them in his letterbox. He might be reading them now, as I write this! My present existence consists solely in waiting. For a letter from you. For a response from Barthes. I am a man who waits. Imagine if he likes my writings. Imagine he offers them to a Parisian publishing house. Imagine that I go to France, maybe even Strasbourg, to publicize my book and give you a copy! Then you could tell your father that I am more than just some economics lecturer, and you’d have to admit that you have no choice but to live the rest of your life with me.

  Aïcha, our life began one night on the terrace of the Café de France. I have not forgotten a single moment of that evening. I remember the spark in your eye every time you looked at me. Not that you let yourself meet my eyes for long. Perhaps you knew that if you looked deep into them you would never come back to the surface. But I felt your gaze on my hands, my lips, and especially my forehead. You stared at my forehead so avidly, trying to guess what strange thoughts might be bubbling away inside it. You wanted to know! Even though we were careful not to say too much, I realized that we would soon be together. In that moment my entire being wanted to enter you. It all began there. Before that we were embryos, unhatched larvae. Nothing remains to me of the years that preceded your appearance. I can’t remember a life in which you did not exist.

  One day, later, during one of our walks, you told me, laughing, that I was an atheist of life. But that isn’t true. Life possesses me, Aïcha. I believe in it fiercely. Life illuminates me, it tears me apart at every moment, I love it in its every aspect: pleasure, happiness, pain, silence. And, thanks to you, I have never felt so close to it. I recognized you. I had been waiting for you since the limbo of childhood, and you arrived. I look up at the sky now, the light in the palm trees, the circling storks, and I am in awe. Believe me, this beauty is made from us. It is made for us.

  MEHDI

  Mehdi posted his letter and walked back up Avenue Mohammed V toward his apartment building. He passed the train station and in the distance he saw the white towers of St. Peter’s Cathedral. When he first moved to the capital he had felt a profound antipathy toward it. The white, torpid city made him suspicious. It was too quiet, he thought, too bourgeois. The kind of place where nothing happens. Nothing visible, anyway, and all the vices, all the lies, were hidden behind the high walls of the bourgeois houses which, in spring, were ablaze with flame vines. Mehdi hated the pretty avenues neatly planted with palm trees. He hated the eucalyptus forest at the entrance to the Agdal neighborhood; those grayish trunks made him anxious. In this city of diplomats and civil servants, courtiers and lackeys, he felt as if he were being constantly spied upon. He was suspicious of waiters in cafés. Behind every caretaker, every taxi driver, he saw an informant.

  Then Mehdi got to know it better. After leaving work, he got into the habit of walking through town, as far as his legs would carry him. He went to the central market, at the bottom of Avenue Mohammed V. He wandered through the indoor vegetable market and admired the fruit stalls. The mandarins and pomegranates that the vendors split open to expose their glittering freshness, and the skinny, dirty cats that ran through the peelings on the ground. He never bought anything but he enjoyed observing the busy stallholders, especially the fishmongers who sat on plastic chairs behind wide marble counters where scarlet-gilled sea bass and John Dory lay dying. He went to the Kasbah of the Udayas and explored that bohemian district with its walls painted white and blue. Sometimes he would go down into the valley and walk along the marshy banks of the Bou Regreg river. Clouds of dense pale-blue mist floated muddy and motionless above the water’s surface. Dozens of white birds perched on gray leafless branches. The locals avoided the river because they said it was full of corpses. Mehdi went up to the Chellah necropolis, where the majestic ramparts turned orange at dusk. And in front of the white-walled, round-roofed marabouts, those buildings where the holy men were buried, women came to leave hard-boiled eggs and bottles of milk as offerings.

  Since it had become the theater of his heartbreak, he had begun to like this city. He walked his melancholy through it, like a dog on a leash, roaming the streets in search of a woman who he knew was far away. And strangely, it was because Aïcha wasn’t here that the streets seemed to him so horribly alive. His quest opened his eyes to the smallest details: the beauty of a building, the golden light on the palace walls, a blacksmith’s gaunt face in Rue des Consuls. He sank deeper into the sands of regret, he brooded over his grief, and the city was his accomplice, his protector.