The Last Friend by Tahar Ben Jelloun

Author:Tahar Ben Jelloun [Jelloun, Tahar Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: prose_contemporary
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

II Mamed

1

I will always remember the first time I met Ali. He was wearing a tight white shirt and blue polyester pants, and he spent recess reading a book, not talking to anyone. "You should play, have fun. You can read at home tonight," I told him. "I don't like to play, I never have fun, and Id much rather read a good book," he replied.

It wasn't clear to me what the future would hold, but I had the feeling that this boy with the white skin and carefully combed hair would become my friend. I told him that he could follow me into the bathroom to smoke, but he refused, and gave me a little lecture: "My mother's brother just died from lung cancer, because he smoked a pack a day-American cigarettes. They smelled good, but they were fatal." I laughed. He smiled. I patted him on the back. He put his hand on my shoulder, and took a few drags of my Favorite. He choked, and swore he would never smoke again.

The following Friday, Ali invited me for couscous at his parents'. He lived in a small house at the top of one of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. I suggested he also invite Sam, who could get us into the Whiskey a Go Go nightclub, even though we weren't old enough and didn't have any money to spend there.

Sam was not a great student; he was smart, but lazy. He had a phenomenal memory. Once he read a page of the phone book and recited it without a single mistake. But when the teacher asked him to recite a Baudelaire poem, he garbled all the lines and gave up, telling the teacher it was too beautiful for someone like him. He came from a very poor family, and he worked nights at the club, which didn't give him much time for homework. He proposed a deal to Ali: "You write my essays, and I'll get you into the nightclub whenever you want. I'll even introduce you to pretty girls who aren't virgins."

Female virginity was our obsession. Girls willing to have sex were rare, and we knew about them only because they already had a steady boyfriend or were in their last year of school. They came to school wearing makeup and perfume. We watched them from a distance, making lewd comments. At the same time, we knew they were untouchable; they were French, and older than we were. One of them was named Germaine, and we called her "over the hill," as she had been dumped by her boyfriend and after that had sex with other boys. She had red eyes, perhaps from crying, but I was sure it was because she had sex all the time.

Ali pretended not to be interested in girls. I knew he was shy, and that he practiced what we called in Arabic "the secret habit." One day, at my house, I suggested a masturbation competition. The idea was to think about one of the beautiful high school girls, say her name, and go at it.

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