Rue de Galilée, Tangier (August 1962)
It smells like spearmint and tallow, and “Ya Mustapha” by Bob Azzam plays in my head.
It's hot
THE CHAOS of the streets
like snails,
…
the melancholy of your words,
…
Tangier: excess without restraint.
José Ricart, «Samarkanda»
I confess that I don't know (we start wrong). I don't know if it's a true memory, an implant, the dream of an electric sheep or just a wish. What I am sure of is that, when I think about the Tangier stage of my life, that of my first three years, my head floods with chords. Chords of a song that (now I know) a certain Bob Azzam sang: "Ya Mustapha."
I close my eyes (close them for a second with me, please) and I see myself in a room in which there is a wooden crib, a cabinet of golden keys, and three or four porcelain swallows hanging on the wall. Everything is calm. It's nap time and only a ray of sunlight breaks the perfect stillness of the bedroom... Suddenly, the notes of "Ya Mustapha" emerge, very far away, from the neighbor's radio (Federico, my neighbor's name was Federico).
«Chérie je t'aime, / chérie je t'adore, / come la salsa di pomodoro *...».
More than hearing them, I imagine them. My hands cling to the bars of the crib and my knees, still clumsy, begin to knock to the rhythm of the music; and I think (or perhaps I dream) that I am just another particle of dust and that, floating and erratic, I cross the clarity of the sunbeam to reach, first, the curtains, then, the plaster moldings of the ceiling and, finally, the wings of one of the porcelain swallows. Everything is calm and Brownian movement.
«Thala aya Mustapha yaemil quelam / heneal quamé bemane aveneal quélam... / Where
my live oh guest oh guest, yes my love / Oh guest, oh guest...! / Ya Mustapha, ya
Mustapha!!!»
A dog barks in the street. He bothers me a lot because he prevents me from concentrating on the notes coming out of the Lebanese singer's throat. My knees stop and I automatically stop feeling like a particle of dust. I start to fall.
But the dog remains silent and runs away when the water porter he was besieging tries to throw a stone at him. He finally doesn't hit him, but makes him run away with his tail between his legs down the rue de Galilée. I hear the tinkling of the brass jugs and the discontented babbling of the water man as I return to my thick sleep. I go back up and go up, up and up like a balloon... And now I'm going down. I move towards the window; I roll on my axes like a gyroscope, then suddenly change and head for the door...
«Tu m'as allumé avec une allumette / Et tu m'as fait perdre la tête... / Chéri je t'aime
chéri je t'adore, come la salsa di pomodoro... / Ya Mustapha, ya Mustapha! / Anavaé
badia Mustapha / ça va cherim faila attaarim / eronquerim matché ema hatchim...»
I float in the warm atmosphere of August... And, without prior warning, my father, who has just arrived from the workshop, opens the door of the room and shows his sooty face and whispers to me: «Chéri je t'aime chéri je t' adore, come la salsa di pomodoro...». My mother follows him from afar with a sweet, vast and satisfied smile.
I feel loved, calm, sleepy and ethereal.
* In English, "My love I love you, / my love I adore you / like tomato sauce".