I was walking along the streets of Sousse, Tunisia when a young guy in smart clothes tapped by elbow and asked me something in Arabic. It seemed unlikely that anyone would take me for an Arab but I was feeling a bit lonely that morning and so answered the usual questions of a traveler.
Name, country of origin, job etc. Before I could get far though, he introduced me to his friend, Ahmed, who came up behind us with a limping gait and a predatory look on his face. It turned out his friend had spent 5 years in Rome and so we spoke in Italian, leaving the first guy out in the cold.
While we were talking a Tunisian girl passed by and he called her over and kissed her on the cheek. He spoke to her in Arabic for a few moments before she waved goodbye and Ahmed suggested we went for a cafe. We entered the ubiquitous all-male Tunisian cafe where gaggles of men of all ages drank coffee around plastic tables, everyone present chain smoking cigarettes or hookahs and the football on overhead televisions.
We found a table and I realised I had come this far with two strangers without really estalishing that we had anything in common. After a few generalities, he leaned over and asked me:. He considered for a moment, conferred with his friend in Arabic and then nodded his head approvingly. She was worried, you know, because some guys when they are in the bed, they kick, you know? It was fun to watch this pimp try to allay my fears and entice me into an afternoon of passion with a Tunisian girl and his attempts to ingratiate himself were amusing.
I gave him a big smile. I walked off on my own into the crowds of the city, not quite as lonely as before and vaguely chilled at the encounter. The world is full of small-time crooks, each occupying a little world of sordid schemes and second-rate fantasies. It was amusing to be seen as a customer and slightly unnerving that I looked like one. A glimpse of just how busting to the seams most countries are through their trains, metro and packed streets. The monuments of the world may have been built by genocidal maniacs.
