Free The Last Friend by Tahar Ben Jelloun

of film, Ali never forgot the social and political reality of our country. He made the link between life and art, between the real and the imaginary.
    During our political meetings, Ali was meticulous and precise. His one flaw was impatience. He could not tolerate people who came late, or people who could not think on their feet. I was proud to be his friend, though his image of me as the well-bred son from a good family got on my nerves. The fact that he came from Fez accentuated his feeling of being different, a sort of disguised arrogance. I did not know Fez, and I had no interest in going there. The people of Fez considered themselves the sole heirs of the Andalucian Golden Age of Muslim civilization.
    We knew a cop had infiltrated our group. He was a student, someone we knew, who ate with us in the university cafeteria, who joined our political debates. He was both intelligent and mean. We were wary of him, but he played the game better than we did. He was short, very thin, ugly, and wore bifocals. He had no luck with girls, but he drove expensive cars and often invited girls to private soirees. Claiming to be the son of a wealthy industrialist, he said he detested his father, who exploited his workers, underpaid them, and did not allow them to unionize. He was the one who reported on our activities to King Hassan's political police. This was 1966, one year after the student riots of 1965, when thousands of high school and university students demonstrated against bad education legislation. They were joined by the unemployed and other dissatisfied citizens. General Oufkir, the interior minister, suppressed the rebellion with machine-gun fire from a helicopter. Hundreds were killed. Afterward, there were thousands of arrests.
    One morning in July 1966, the day after my return from France, two men in civilian clothes arrested me at my parents' house. My mother cried. My father controlled himself, trying to negotiate with the police. There was nothing they could do, they said. Orders were orders, and these came from high up. "We have to arrest him to interrogate him, and then he will be sent off to do his military service." My father choked. "What military service? This is Morocco." The reply was instantaneous. "Well, your son will be starting a new tradition. Think of it as an honor for the family."
    We all knew the names and faces of people who had been arrested and were never heard from again. My mother threw a roll out the window into my hands.
    I spent fifteen days at the mercy of the police. They beat me. I thought about my parents, about Ali and Hamza. I knew the authorities had opted for total repression. General Oufkir was in charge. We had committed no crime. We just had some ideas for helping our country emerge from poverty and paralysis.

4
    There was nothing to indicate that the military base where the jeep let me off was a disciplinary boot camp. I got there at the end of the day and waited in an empty room. Around two o'clock in the morning, an enormous man appeared. His head was shaved. "I'm Commander Tadla, and I'm in charge here. I report to no one, not even the camp commander."
    He left me with a corporal who told me to take off all of my civilian clothes and put them in the sack he threw at me. "You'll find everything you need here to become a soldier," he said to me. Another soldier arrived with a little case. He was the camp barber. He proceeded to shear me like a sheep, then shaved my head, without saying a word. By three o'clock in the morning, I had become someone else.
    Early the next morning, Commander Tadla called all of us together and gave us an unforgettable lecture. "You are just ninety-four spoiled kids. You're being punished. You wanted to be smart-asses, and I'm going to teach you a thing or two. There's no daddy and mommy here. You can yell all you like; nobody will hear you. In this place, I will dress you and change you. You'll no longer be spoiled kids, queers, children of the rich. Here