Gates to Tangier Read Online Free

about it.
    "Want some whisky?" asked Alb ­ erto from behind me.
    "Yes."
    "This family never says no to whiskey."
    "Maybe it will help cure this cold. Or more likely give me a headache. We'll see."
    I thought that we were coming for the month, and going back immed ­ iately, but here we are are, on a flight to Mad ­ id, as our grandmother said, journeys are when you ketbea . We are looking for Yosef Elbaz, brother, half-brother, almost thirty years old, about twenty-seven, maybe, even this isn't clear. We only know who his mother is, and now my children will have to wait a few days for me. My little girl cried on the phone, but will have to wait, this will la ­ st a few days, maybe a week. Maybe Mrs. Elbaz, our Fátima, will be waiting for us in the same house where we grew up. I bought it, she’ll say, from the money that your father sent. She will tell us how her son was raised and how intelligent he is, and that he went to Belgium, or no, she would tell us he got involved with drug trafficking and is now in jail, no, she would never tell us that, if he is in jail she'll say he went to the Netherlands and she doesn't know where he lives, he telephones once in a while. Yes, of course, he calls me and sends me money through Western Union. How would she pronounce that? In a Spanish mixed with Arabic, we would tell her why we came. Or keep it secret, I'm not sure.
    "Who wanted a brother anyway?" my brother asks me.
    "Yes. This is what we are all wondering, if an ­ y of us need another brother now. We're not really interested. We're traveling because our inheritance depends on this. Right? Maybe some curiosity, and maybe the opportunity to go to Morocco together, a special occas ­ ion that will never happen again, but above all it is mone ­ y, and Papa always said not to trust anyone when it comes to money.”
    "What does that have to do with anything?”
    "I don't know, but here's the food. Now we have something to do."
    "Yes, this is why we have food, to ­ entertain us."
    But not even a plate full of airplane food is enough to stop the thoughts, not even the cold. I ask for more tissues from the flight attendant. I would rather see my little brother, the one who died in the war. Not a new one. This is the only way to become a real Israeli. A Moroccan who dies in the war becomes a real Israeli. Until that moment he is half-Israeli. It must be because the dead cannot threaten anyone. Die and become one of us. I don't want to think about that.
    My little brother would b ­ e thirty-three today, or thirty four, married, with one or two children, a wonderful age, he would be thirty-three, but he isn't here and no one talks about him. We all think about him but not out loud, the topic is sealed, the other three hundred soldiers that exploded alongside him, he is the one I want to see, and not Yosef, who I don't kn ­ ow, what good can this bring. We are going to see him but what we are looking for is money.

ALBERTO
    W rite, write, write. Everything in this world is meant to end up in ­ a book, to be written on a page, som ­ eone dies and it is a book, it is a poem, someone kills someone, we write about it, terrorist attack, a daytime lover, they are all words, we see the thoug ­ hts of my brothers, a book.
    I am sitting here with my laptop in fr ­ ont of me, my brothers behind, and I write. I write about them, I write them, I write about me, I don't think, you don't think, I write. Logic comes later. The only logic is that everything has a word, everything that happens is one word and another. Isaque is coming to Madrid from New York, the words go on, word ­ s explain everything or nothing, what does it matter, what is important is to document.
    My father is dead, fine, we hav ­ e a book, I will write a book ab ­ out my father, about my dead brother, about divorce, the second wife, who exists or doesn't exist, it doesn't matter, I can wr ­ ite about what exists as if it doesn't exist, about what has been and what will