hearing, kept seeing through the flapping
tents and the dust that would lift and curl.
IN 1970 HE BEGAN graduate school in
Eugene, Oregon. Even though he wanted to
be there, he was afraid of the US. So many
people, so many leaders he admired had
been killed there. Before class he’d drink
a shot of whisky, sometimes three, and
proceed into the lecture hall or seminar
with hair wide as Jupiter. Two times a week
as a teaching assistant, he’d meet his stu-
dents, have discussions with them, all the
while thinking of Morocco and his mother.
When she died in 1973, he didn’t tell
anyone and didn’t have money to attend
the funeral. He expected to die before he
finished his doctorate, but he lived and
marched in that town almost as much as
he’d done in Paris. For those five years, he’d
rented a room by himself. No one could see
him drink, and he’d learned to hold it, to
fake sobriety as if an actor.
That sky he stared at there in Kai-
rouan was the same as the sky he’d seen
every morning he rode his bike in Eugene.
Ahmad gave him a sandwich made with
the warm bread, slices of a boiled egg,
and harissa. “I like this,” Amine said as
he chewed. He liked the spiciness of the
harissa most, the burning it induced.
“I told you,” Ahmad said as he began
driving, the sandwich in one hand. There
were camels on the side of the road and
three boys in burgundy and teal shirts play-
ing among them. The palms were tall and
thick and fronds waved as if shredded flags.
Ahmad parked the car near a round-
about. “What happened?” Amine asked.
“The police have stopped me.” He got
out of the car, handing the tall police offi-
cer in blue uniform and mirrored shades
the papers he kept in his wallet. Ahmad
blushed as he smiled at the officer who
frowned. He walked back to the car and
returned to the road. “This is the revolu-
tion?” He yelled. “This is our revolution?
I wasn’t even speeding and I have a two-
hundred-dinar ticket. I don’t even get two
hundred dinars for this job.” He slammed
his wallet into the glove compartment.
“Your revolution? Our revolution? Did you
see me speeding?”
Amine wasn’t checking the speedom-
eter. “No, you weren’t,” he said.
“They just stop people because they
want money. We can’t say anything about
it. Two hundred dinars. Where am I goingto get this money? I don’t have any money.”
Amine kept looking at the road through
his sunglasses. He was aware of the corrup-
tion, as he’d known it in Morocco. He was
disappointed, after the revolution, still, still
that, he thought.
“Let me take you to Hammamet after
Sidi Bouzid?” Ahmad asked. “You’ll love
the beach there. We can have grilled
prawns on the beach.”
“Not this time, Ahmad.”
He breathed deeply. “You haven’t seen
Tunisia until you’ve visited Hammamet.”
“Maybe another time,” he said.
Ahmad thought of the clients he’d driv-
en to Libya and Algeria. He remembered
the money he’d received at the end, the
stacks of dinars he folded into his wallet:
the oranges and bottles of wine he broughtto friends’ apartments in Tunis, the blaring
music in those apartments all night.IN 1975 HIS FATHER showed up at
Amine’s graduation. He smelled the whis-
key on his son’s breath when he smiled at
him, when he was unsure he was his father.
They embraced on the campus for what
seemed to be, at minimum, thirty minutes.
Amine kept seeing pines and his father
near those pines. They were hugging in a
forest of pines where they were the only
humans: his father and pines and pine-
cones and owls staring at them. That was
what he saw as they embraced: rose and
dust and sandalwood and salt, his father’s
scent combining in the forest. He helped
him pack up his apartment: books mainly
and clothes he’d hoped his son’s job would
allow him to discard. He did like his worn
yet maintained black leather jacket and
the black shades he wore with it and with
almost everything even though the sun
was minimal most of the time. They drove
across the country to South Carolina where
the Confederate flag waved everywhere.
The only reason he moved there was for
the job. It was the only job he’d gotten,
and more than being proud of getting the
job, he hoped to politicize southern youth
into critical, even radical thinkers. He was
elated to be living, astonished even.AMINE WAS EXPECTING something
different from the town, something grand,
at least a feeling of it. “So this is Sidi Boua-
zid. There’s not much to it,” Ahmad said.
The sun was dim as was the town, just a
regular town in all of that gray, Amine
thought. Ahmad stopped in the center.
“How long will you be?”
“Maybe two hours,” Amine said. He
opened the back door, taking out the bou-
quet and topping his head with the raffia
hat. The roses and jasmine were pungent
in his face as he held the bouquet near his
chin. The car was in front of a wall where
someone had painted revolution upside
down. He gave Ahmad his camera. “Will
you take a picture of me here?”He wanted to see the
details: the cracks in the
rocks, the way the lotus
trees bent in the breeze,
how the old man in a
red-and-white scarf
teetered past the cement
fruit crate, hand cupping
his chin.WORLDLIT.ORG 17