may have been handsome as a young man,
girls offering their kisses behind buildings,
stone fences, garages, behind bedroom
doors—sex, too, in all those dwellings.
It was the life he wished he had. The life
most young men wanted, he suspected.
But everyone wanted something and most
didn’t get whatever it was. That’s what he
believed, as that was his life. He didn’t
mind driving; in fact, he liked it. He had
seen most of Tunisia due to his profes-
sion and liked meeting people from other
places. “Where are you from, sidi?”
“Morocco. And you?”
“Of course, Tunisia. I grew up in Tunis.”
“One never knows. We shouldn’t assume
anything. But I will contradict myself and
say, you must be a revolutionary?”
“I wish I were.”
Amine let out a sigh, as he understood
this more than he’d wished. “We do what
we can.” He took off his sunglasses. “I’m
Amine. What’s your name?”
“Ahmad.” They shook hands. “So why
are you here?” He didn’t know if it was
inappropriate to ask the question, but he
took a chance.
Amine shook his head. “Because I
wasn’t here in 2010. Because I haven’t been
to North Africa in thirty years.” He rubbed
his forehead. “We all must return.”
“But.. .”
“Go ahead, ask the obvious question.”
“Why didn’t you go to Morocco?”
“Yes, you got it right,” he said, staring
out the window, staring at the stork nests
on top of the telephone poles. They looked
like giant baskets used to transport bread
from truck to store to restaurant. Those
giant birds with those giant beaks that
looked like spikes made to splay through
that beating muscle, red and shiny. Those
birds reminded him of Morocco as he’d
seen both the nests and storks on roof-
tops and rusted satellite dishes throughout
the country. He wondered if those dry
nests sometimes turned to charged green
branches, if they sometimes glowed at
night. “I don’t have anyone there anymore.
We are dead, most of us dead.” He stretched
his arms above his head. “Tunisia is alive. It
is the beginning of life for us.”
“Who are we, Amine?” The driver
slightly rolled down the window, letting in
some air, letting out some of what was stale
in that car.“You are the beginning and I’m what’s
past. I want to see how we will begin before
I die.” He looked at the wheat field, the gold
of it folding in wind. It was as if it appeared
just in time, the waving and folding of it,
both old and new. He thought of it being
threshed, the grain shaken and ground
into flour. He thought of women kneading
dough, smearing it with green olive oil as
his mother had done, as he’d seen women
constantly doing in the market close to
their apartment building in Marrakech.
He fell in and out of sleep until they
stopped. He saw a woman in a black scarf
swathed about her head and a blue djellaba
that picked up the wind. She walked with
a small boy toward a steel garbage can bil-
lowing black smoke. “Would you like some
bread? This town is known for its bread.”
“Okay,” Amine said, looking at the few
women near darkened grills and tents.
Ahmad got out of the car, slamming the
door shut. There were few cars passing on
the street. The wind, that’s what he keptTUNISIA PHOTO: ADRIAN DASCAL/UNSPLASHAmine kept one of the
roses, pulling petals
from it and throwing
them onto the wall.
He was saying
something as he did
it, a prayer perhaps, a
prayer for them.FICTION ROSES AND JASMINE
16 W LT SUMMER 2019