Delayed Condolences

Danielle Loustau-Williams

 Ahmed rings the doorbell outside a large villa with 10 foot walls of peeling paint. This is the tenth doorbell he rang that morning. Three hadn’t responded. Four answered but politely turned down his offers. Two sent him away after scolding him for trying. He is a handsome young man with very thick skin. His introduction is concise and honest and he feels no shame for being turned away, however rudely.

While coronavirus brought the Moroccan economy to its knees, Ahmed was accustomed to surviving in marginal circumstances. He was not part of the burgeoning middle class talked about in World Bank reports. Nor was he one of the unemployed graduates, too proud to work below their three years of university. He left school at a young age and he was used to picking through the scraps of consumer capitalism. A security guard at a fancy mall. A chauffeur for the rich white lady too scared to drive. A place holder. An everything man. Bring me a pizza. Take this lady to her aunt’s house. Hang my pictures on the wall. Pick up my kids from school. Here’s some money for the gas and a little extra for you. Piece it all together and he had an income complete with food on the table and some fresh kitchen supplies for his mother.

Now he was venturing out into the corona-wrecked economic wilderness, knocking on doors, rich people’s doors - preferably, rich people with high walls of peeling paint.

“My name is Ahmed. I am wondering if you have any tasks or problems in your house that need to be fixed. They can be big or small. I have a team of people I can bring if necessary. I’m just looking for some money to bring home to my family.”

The woman who answers sizes him up. He is wearing torn sandals and has an aura of grievance. But he is polite and he seems genuine, so she decides to trust him. With masks on and the appropriate social distance maintained, she lets him in.

Aside from the required six feet between them, a much bigger gap exists in terms of social standing. He was what the officials called an, “internal migrant,” from the impoverished south, which is a polite way of describing someone who doesn’t belong and who can’t buy a position on the social ladder.

She, on the other hand, comes from the top of the ladder, marked by luxurious villas, plush carpets and gigantic living rooms that mostly stay empty. Even when they aren’t empty, they feel empty because they are so big. In Morocco, gigantic, empty living rooms are a status symbol, like iphones and luxury cars. Regardless of their lack of utility, they signal who is in and who is out. In this world of differentiation meant to keep her in and the riff raff out, the walls often get misplaced keeping the wrong people in and the right people out.

“My father passed away from coronavirus. I need you to go to the medina and fix his tombstone,” she says with a stiffness that comes with her status. Her father was a generally cold figure, unreachable with words. He was old and his family was ready for him to go. It only took Corona four days to take him. He was one of the first to die in the country’s outbreak. It is sad. She supposes. She might even cry. But probably not.

“My condolences” Ahmed says to her. “A lot of people say corona isn’t real. But it is. I lost a friend too. He was young. We used to work together.” His voice shakes a bit as he says this; he hasn’t quite accepted that his friend is truly gone.

Ahmed hadn’t known his friend was sick and hadn’t even thought to check on him when he heard that an outbreak occurred in the shopping mall where his friend worked. One morning as he finished his shift as the night watchman, the tribute to his friend popped up on his facebook feed. Usually, he would go to sleep for a few hours before getting up to go look for more work. But on this morning he sat in his car and cried. All morning long. This was to be the first of three corona-related deaths for Ahmed, during the outbreak that was supposedly under control, according to the local authorities, and relatively mild, according to the WHO.

“How old was he?” asks the woman.

“He was 32. He worked at Carrefour. He was diabetic.”

Upon hearing this, she surprises herself by falling into her chair and crying. A real cry. Not the fake cry one does at funerals when that’s what one is supposed to do. The truth is, she wasn’t especially sad when her father passed away. And that makes her sad. He had been sick for a long time. He had been a distant old man for an even longer time. In a moment, this unknown 32 year old man is more human to her and deserving of life than her own father. So she cries. And Ahmed cries with her. He misses his friend. And they sit together, no longer adhering to the six foot rule. Or maybe it just seems that the social distance is no longer so distant. As far apart as they are, they feel very close.

Ahmed wipes his eyes and stands, holding the blank tombstone in his arms. “I’ll bring this back to you this afternoon.” She hands him 500 dirhams, knowing that 200 is enough. She tells him to keep the change. This would feed his family for two days. He leaves, fulfills his task and the two of them part ways back to their opposite ends on the social ladder, cutting their shared sadness in two. She trusts him. He trusts her. And that is all.