Author: Khalid LAHLOU.

Yes, of course. I’m all ears.
-I hope you wouldn’t be bored with my story.
-Not at all. Please, express yourself as freely as you can.
-Well, my story took place ten years ago or so.
-Ten years!
-Yes. It’s over ten long years. I still remember every single thing that I had gone through. It’s like a video tape, you know, I can play it , wind it and rewind it whenever I like and as often as possible. Can you imagine?

I was very interested to hear my best friend speak and uncover his heart to me.

-Yes, tell me, what do you exactly want to say? I asked him impatiently.
-Well, my friend resumed, listen to me carefully. He made a short pause and then continued.
-When I was young – I mean younger than now- I had gone through some sort of emotional experiences that still mark me until this time. There’re things a person sometimes feels like wishing to impart and to convey to one of his closest friends. And this is what I’m trying to do now.

His long introduction had filled me with mixed feelings. To just go away pretending I had something to do or to put my curiosity in a fridge and to listen to him. The latter outweighed the former and I found myself prepared to hear what he had to say.

-I have always dreamt to be a famous writer. He began without paying the slightest attention to my growing nervousness. I started to write when I was almost fifteen years old. My dream was nearly going to be fulfilled but it was suddenly thwarted. I have always held in my bosom that a writer should undergo some sorts of suffering so as to express his feelings and to put them into words so that his readers may share the whole experience with him. I have gone through many sorts of suffering, especially those related to emotions and sentiments.

He could not stop the flow of his ideas. While he was talking, his eyes were looking fixedly at something I did not know. I might venture to say that the person before me was not the one who was really talking. I had the impression that his spirit was doing it in his stead.

-I remember falling in love, or thinking to have fallen in love, with more than one girl. He continued as if he were talking to himself and that my presence was unknown to him. It was something fantastic, unusual and beyond belief. I have always had a feeling that girls are second rate creatures. They just love you, not for yourself, but for what you have. I still hold in my breast something that happened to me when still a secondary school pupil. But it’s like yesterday.

He stopped for a moment to collect his ideas, then he resumed.

-I still remember one girl telling me that I couldn’t possibly have a girl friend. I still don’t know the basis upon which she passed on her judgement. I was shocked. I was frustrated. I couldn’t sleep that night. I lost faith in myself. I lost faith in every body. I developed a kind of inferiority complex towards the other sex. It was a dreadful experience.

He was suffering. I tried to hide my feelings but I found myself mesmerised by his voice which was full of pain.

-I still remember, he went on, that from that day on, consciously or unconsciously, I started despising them ,girls. More than that, I created a kind of barrier between me and them. Sometimes I took enormous pleasure in trying to befriend them and would let them down when I felt they were so attached to me. But this did not last longer. A day came when I had found my other half. I t was an amazing experience. We loved each other dearly and exceedingly until I had discovered …
He paused.
- What did you discover? I prayed him to say.
-It was my best friend.continued he without heeding my question. Well-I thought he was my best friend. I trusted him, used to tell him all my secrets and all my personal and confidential business- I mean the business of the heart. It was the biggest mistake ever.

I looked at him vaguely as if I were day-dreaming. His story seemed so real that I got afraid to be contaminated.

-What happened, then? I beseeched him to continue.
-To my disappointment, he continued without paying the slightest attention to my request, and to my amazement, he seduced the girl whom I thought was everything in my life. It was the sort of experience that I never will forget. Years have gone by, and still I feel the wound deepening in my heart.

I could see something running through his cheeks. I did not want to meet his eyes. He, too, consciously or unconsciously, tried to avoid looking at me right in my eyes as he did a few moments earlier. Without interrupting him, he continued his tale.

-I admit that I loved her dearly and superbly. She was for me the girl of my fancy, of my imagination, the girl I had always seen in my dreams and the girl I had always identified with the heroines of the short stories I used to read while a little boy at school. I was shocked.

The tune of his voice grew denser. My heart was beating faster awaiting him to finish his story sooner. Then he shouted with anger.

-He seduced her and he knew full well that I was deeply in love with her. He seduced her and he knew pretty well that I couldn’t live without her – or I thought I couldn’t live without her. The scar is still left in my heart. Who’s to blame?

I thought he was asking me to make sure that I was following him. I was on the verge of answering him when he so suddenly resumed.

-I had blamed him first; but after deeper thinking and rethinking, I came to the conclusion that the mistake was collective. It was his and hers. She shouldn’t have given him that chance. I wrote poems and short stories. She was always omnipresent in them. I happen to read a novel by Somerset Maugham, the English novelist, you know, I read it once, twice, three times, and then it becomes a habit to read it now and then. I see myself there. Although Walter loves Kitty dearly, she has decided to betray him. And who with?

I was going to be trapped again and thought that I was supposed to answer the question this time, for I know S. Maugham, the English novelist, as my friend stressed. We read him while we were still students at college, especially his master piece The Painted Veil. I know the story very well. I know Walter, the faithful husband ,and I also know Charles Townsend, the worthless fellow. Without awaiting my reply he continued.

-She has decided to betray him with an empty –shelled, useless and a good- for- nothing sort of person. Walter, her husband , was shocked ;and so was I.

My friend put his head between his hands. He was trying to forget and I could not help him. I felt his story was mine.
Before I took leave of him, I gently and soothingly put my hand upon his shoulders, in a way to tenderly comfort him, and said:
-Well, well. Let long-gone be long-gone and let the past be buried!

He did not seem to hear what I said, for he was deeply lost in contemplations.

About the Author:
I am an associate lecturer, Hassan II University, Faculty of Letters, Casablanca, Morocco. I got my BA in Morocco then went to England for my postgraduate studies. The course I am teaching this year are:Modern American Fiction, American Media Analysis and US culture in the world. I also supervise end-of year students projects.



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