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HASSAN NAJMI Hélène to get it ready for Mohammed’s stay. She may, of course, have been hoping in her heart of hearts that his stay wouldn’t last long. Mohammed was then able to say to Gertrude: “I loved you the first time I ever looked at you at Tangiers.” Without hesitation she replied: “We don’t waste much time when we love at first sight!” She thought back on the Hotel Villa de France in Tangiers. She remembered the good-natured Moroccan waiter at the bar, the local cheese sellers in front of the hotel, the round-bread sellers and the homeless drunk who would stand under the hotel windows and loudly proclaim that he was a friend of Henri Matisse: “Matisse painted a picture of me over there, from that window!” As Mohammed stared hungrily into the face of the woman whom he described as “one of those Americans who were born along with the first skyscrapers in their country,” he heard her ask him in a voice that seemed to be reaching him from a loudspeaker or from inside a recording studio: “Do you remember that night in Tangiers? Ahh! I was so scared. At the same time, I was so happy! I swear to you, you purified me, you captivating Moroccan! What did you do to me to bring me down to earth from my distant heaven? Ahh! You can’t imagine what it was like for me: I entered paradise and left it again. That night that will never be repeated . . .” Alice returned and joined them again in their cosy session in the parlour. They were sitting next to the radiator beneath works by Cézanne, Renoir and Matisse, which hung not far from the portrait Picasso had painted of Gertrude. “The room is all ready.You can go up whenever you like.” Gertrude thanked her. Then, slightly adjusting the collar of her chamois coat, she continued her conversation with Mohammed. “Ever since you arrived I’ve been wondering what you were doing there in those wide empty spaces? Tangiers is beautiful, of course, and an amazing place. But it isn’t the place for a young man like you who still has his whole life ahead of him. Isn’t that so, Mohammed?” “I have to thank you, Gertrude,” Mohammed replied. “Your letters, as infrequent and brief as they were, were a motivation for me to see the world from a new perspective. And the truth is that it is you who lifted me to heaven!” “By the way, how was Tangiers, and how was the country, when 100 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES
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HASSAN NAJMI you left? Have they built the port? And have they launched the tramway project they’d been talking about?” “The tramway is still a distant dream. However, they’ve finished building the port. It isn’t the way it was when you came. Next time you come you won’t need porters to carry you on their backs to keep the coastal waters from getting you all wet!” “And the country as a whole?” “The country! The whole country has been divided up by the French and the Spanish – something you were aware of when it happened.The Sultan was deposed and his brother brought to power in his place. As for Tangiers, although the whole city has come under international jurisdiction and isn’t subject to the authority of any one country, Spain is doing all it can to secure control over it. However, the Americans remind them from time to time that Tangiers isn’t a Spanish protectorate.” It was on Tangiers beach, under a clear, starry and unforgettably blue night sky that their first meeting alone had taken place. It was destined to do so thanks to the fact that a French friend of theirs – namely, Monsieur Marshand, former French consul-general inTangiers – had recommended Mohammed as a guide during their visit to the city. Mohammed had volunteered gladly and being a competent and trustworthy guide had, within days, managed to become a dear friend, earning a place in their hearts. One of the things Mohammed told me about that encounter in the distant past was that throughout that night, he hadn’t slept. Even when the American woman had fallen into a deep slumber, he had remained wide awake, fighting to keep his eyes open. It was true, of course, that he’d been ecstatically happy. At the same time, however, he’d been afraid to go to sleep lest he start snoring.Who knows what might happen when a person is half-dead in the night? His intestines might breathe, and if that happened he might ruin the place with noxious-smelling gases and spoil the idyllic picture! I like to think of Mohammed’s arriving in Paris on a lovely spring day. In fact, he never spoke to me about what the weather had been like when he reached Gertrude’s apartment. He made no mention in any of the papers he left in my safe-keeping of hot, muggy weather as one sometimes experiences in Paris, or of cold, unpleasant weather, heavy rain and mud. Consequently, I prefer to cover the Paris sky upon his arrival with a light drizzle – light enough not to BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 101

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HASSAN NAJMI

Hélène to get it ready for Mohammed’s stay. She may, of course, have been hoping in her heart of hearts that his stay wouldn’t last long. Mohammed was then able to say to Gertrude: “I loved you the first time I ever looked at you at Tangiers.” Without hesitation she replied: “We don’t waste much time when we love at first sight!”

She thought back on the Hotel Villa de France in Tangiers. She remembered the good-natured Moroccan waiter at the bar, the local cheese sellers in front of the hotel, the round-bread sellers and the homeless drunk who would stand under the hotel windows and loudly proclaim that he was a friend of Henri Matisse: “Matisse painted a picture of me over there, from that window!”

As Mohammed stared hungrily into the face of the woman whom he described as “one of those Americans who were born along with the first skyscrapers in their country,” he heard her ask him in a voice that seemed to be reaching him from a loudspeaker or from inside a recording studio: “Do you remember that night in Tangiers? Ahh! I was so scared. At the same time, I was so happy! I swear to you, you purified me, you captivating Moroccan! What did you do to me to bring me down to earth from my distant heaven? Ahh! You can’t imagine what it was like for me: I entered paradise and left it again. That night that will never be repeated . . .”

Alice returned and joined them again in their cosy session in the parlour. They were sitting next to the radiator beneath works by Cézanne, Renoir and Matisse, which hung not far from the portrait Picasso had painted of Gertrude.

“The room is all ready.You can go up whenever you like.” Gertrude thanked her. Then, slightly adjusting the collar of her chamois coat, she continued her conversation with Mohammed. “Ever since you arrived I’ve been wondering what you were doing there in those wide empty spaces? Tangiers is beautiful, of course, and an amazing place. But it isn’t the place for a young man like you who still has his whole life ahead of him. Isn’t that so, Mohammed?”

“I have to thank you, Gertrude,” Mohammed replied. “Your letters, as infrequent and brief as they were, were a motivation for me to see the world from a new perspective. And the truth is that it is you who lifted me to heaven!”

“By the way, how was Tangiers, and how was the country, when

100 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES

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