Storybook clouds cut the sun shining down on central Tunisia this December afternoon. The high arches in the crumbling rock of El Jem amphitheater are stunning, light and shadows passing across them as they have for the past 2,000 years. I try to imagine all of the people who have ever rested where I sit at this moment, dozens of generations of lives, all somehow connected to each other and to me. Then another chilly breeze blows through these Roman ruins, and my sense of wonder is overridden by the need to warm my limbs. After one last gaze at this vast oval marvel, I descend the ancient stone stairs, smoothed by millions of footfalls. I make my way through the inner corridor, out the front gates, past the camel dozing outside the entrance, and back into the streets of El Jem town for the ten-minute walk back to the louage (shared taxi) station.
The stark, midday sun assaults my retinas. I pull my sunglasses from the top of my head to my face. Then I walk into a shadowed part of the sidewalk, where the temperature drops and I feel claustrophobic and half-blind behind the tinted lenses. I pull the glasses back up to the top of my head. Then I turn a corner back into the direct glare and have to put my sunglasses back on. Despite the disorienting extremes between light and dark in a North African winter, I will happily take this over the oven-like heat of summer, when the sun brutally browns everything but the traditional white and blue paint on stone-and-plaster buildings. The locals might feel differently; it is in the fifties, but many are bundled up like Chicagoans Christmas shopping along the Magnificent Mile.
Afternoon public transport can be spotty outside of Tunisia’s larger cities, so I do not stop to linger in the small town of El Jem, nor is there much to tempt me. The streets are lined with closed bakeries, small shops selling plastic shoes, a disturbing number of mannequins on the sidewalks, and cafés sparsely populated by men smoking and sipping shots of thick black coffee. A few motorbikes zip up and down the narrow streets among even fewer cars. It is already two o’clock when I enter the same courtyard of rickety white vans that I arrived at just ninety minutes ago. Now it is forebodingly quiet. Three men loiter by a defunct ticket window.
Sousse? they ask me, assuming I am headed north.
Non, Sfax, I reply. They shake their heads. There is no louage to Sfax, I understand from their Arabic-spattered French.
When will there be one? I ask, in my own broken French. Ce soir? I ask: This evening? I want them to reassure me that I will certainly get a ride home before dark. All of my things are in the apartment I am renting in Sfax, an hour’s drive south of El Jem.
But the men remain silent, expressions unchanged. That is not good.
Demain? I venture: Tomorrow?
Now they look alive, reassuring me that, yes, for sure, tomorrow I can return to Sfax.
Est-ce qu’il y a un train ce soir? I ask, trying to make clear I am open to any and all modes of transport headed south yet today.
Oui, one of the guys says, shrugging. Le train pour Sfax est à six heures.
I am not too excited about waiting four hours for a six p.m. train, given that everyone keeps telling me Tunisian trains are rarely used and absolutely unreliable except in their extreme lateness and routine cancellations. As I try to think through my situation, a fourth man approaches, speaking in agitated, garbled Arabic and gesturing away from the louage station to the east. I saw him here when I first arrived and assumed him to be the (likely unofficial) caretaker of the station grounds. I have the impression he suffers from some sort of cognitive disability, and I think he is now trying to explain where I can find the train station.
Merci, shukran, thank you, thank you, I tell him. Then I walk ten steps to the other side of the louage station entryway and sit down on the curb within clear sight of all of the loitering men. A few people wander into the lot, gravitating toward one of the vans. It is almost full, which means it can soon leave for its destination. One of the guys from the entrance heads toward the vehicle. Another of them catches my eye and points to the van. I stand up, hopeful that my fortunes have changed. But when I walk over to ask the passengers, Sfax?, they all shake their heads and reply: Sousse. I walk back to the curb and sit down again. The remaining loitering guys look at me questioningly. I point to the van and tell them again, C’est pour Sousse, mais je vais à Sfax. That van is going to Sousse but I am going to Sfax. One of them shrugs. The van pulls out of the depot. The self-appointed station caretaker starts hollering at it and hollering at me, probably agitated that I failed to get on the only vehicle going anywhere anytime soon.
Now the yard is emptier than ever. I keep sitting on the curb; sometimes when people see me, a solo female traveler, just sitting and waiting, they suddenly think of other helpful suggestions for how I can get to the place I am going. But not today. After about twenty minutes, both of the remaining loitering guys and the caretaker have wandered off. Of the dozen or so white vans parked in the depot yard, one of them has a driver and a few passengers sitting inside waiting for more travelers to fill the seats. But having repeated my destination so many times, I feel confident that van is not bound for Sfax. Each time the wind blows through, I catch a face-full of dust. Eventually I decide to get up and walk the ten minutes to the train station to at least confirm a train is scheduled for six o’clock.
The scene over there is even more desolate. The one employee I can find appears not even to believe herself as she tells me that yes, the train to Sfax should come through at 6:10 p.m. I wander back to the louages, where nothing much has changed. Yet another van to Sousse is slowly attracting passengers. When the caretaker guy notices I have returned, he resumes ranting at me. Based on context clues, his theatrical hand gestures, and the names Sfax and Sousse, I think he is telling me to get on this van to Sousse and from there try to find a louage back down to Sfax. But I am not ready to commit to riding more than an hour in the wrong direction with no guarantee there will be a van going two hours back south, and possibly being stuck twice as far away from where I need to be than I am now.
I let the van fill up and depart without me. The caretaker is beside himself. He seems sure the problem is that I cannot understand his instructions. I try to reassure him, again and again, je comprends, je comprends, I understand. Then I tell him, J’aspette le train, I am waiting for the train. This only inspires him to beckon me back out onto the street for more pointing in the direction of the train station. Not wanting to agitate him any further, I wave and start walking that way. Muttering to himself—perhaps about the stubborn stupidity of foreign women—he scurries back to the louage yard. As soon as he is out of sight, I go back across the street to an archaeological museum that is included in the ticket I bought to visit El Jem.
I am not much of a museum-goer, but this one is a real sanctuary. Rooms of floor-to-ceiling, earth-toned mosaics are situated around a central courtyard. The break from the wind means relief from the chill and dust. I stroll through the quiet rooms and check my text messages for the first time in a couple of hours. One of them is from Mehdi, the kind and gentle soul who rents out the Sfax apartment I am staying in. Everything good?, he wants to know.
Since he is asking, I reply and tell him the situation. He responds immediately, agreeing that waiting for the train might not be the best option. He suggests a great alternative that had not occurred to me: Since my ride from Sfax to El Jem this morning cost the equivalent of two dollars and each louage has ten seats, I could buy out an entire louage for twenty dollars. He supposes that it is financially possible and entirely worth twenty dollars to me not to be stuck in El Jem any longer. He supposes correctly. Bolstered, I leave the museum in the direction of the louage station. As I walk along, worrying that my reappearance may give the caretaker a stroke, two teenage girls call out to me from a bench at a bus stop: Bonjour!
Bonjour, I reply to them, and—on a whim—pause to chat. When I lived for a year in Morocco two decades ago, I was tortured by the sense that everyone who interacted with me had an ulterior motive. Most of my relationships felt transactional and therefore cheap; I constantly felt used and manipulated and routinely ignored people who called out to me on the street. Now in middle age, my perspective has shifted. I am more willing to engage, unbothered that some people might want something from me. Tunisians are exceptionally congenial anyway, and I have had many conversations here that ended in a friendly au revoir rather than a request for money. More profoundly, I think the past twenty years have helped me understand that billions of people existing with each other on this planet is necessarily transactional in so many ways, and I do not always need to be avoiding that reality. I want things from my interactions too—even if it is just a kind smile. We are all trying to get what we need as individuals within social systems, like holders of string ends that connect us all, directly or indirectly. Pull too hard and others lose their balance; but zero tension in the line means feeling unmoored, unconnected, and unsustainable. These days, life feels to me like an exercise of constantly adjusting the tautness of my connections. Everything is always changing, making it a lifelong project.
And so I say bonjour back and stop to chat with these two girls who have randomly called out to me on the street this December afternoon in El Jem, Tunisia. Why not? After we exchange ça va’s and they determine I am American, they hit me with all the English they know in about three seconds flat. I explain my situation as best I can in French. They reply in Arabic. I have no idea what they are saying, but they jump up to start walking the last block to the louage station with me, chattering excitedly and pulling me along. When the three of us get back into the little depot, the caretaker makes a beeline from where he was herding passengers into yet another van to Sousse and dives into intense conversation in Arabic with my teenage companions, who may or may not be trying to parlay their dubious understanding of my new plan. I can tell the caretaker is yet again insisting that I should just go to Sousse, but the girls don’t know how to explain this to me, and when I tell them in French that I understand but do not want to go to Sousse, they cannot understand me. Another Tunisian woman, this one more my age, gravitates toward the hubbub until she is standing right next to me. For a minute she watches the whole scene in confusion.
Vous parlez français? I ask her. Oui, she responds. I tell her: I need to go to Sfax. I will pay 60 dinars for the entire louage if there are no other passengers. She nods decisively and jumps into the conversational melee unfolding before us. Now it is a real circus, with one improvement: my new friend occasionally translates for me.
Il n’y a pas des louage à Sfax aujourd’hui, she tells me: no more louage to Sfax today.
Je sais, I know, I tell her, and restate my willingness to buy out an entire van.
She raises her eyebrows briefly before pushing back into the ongoing discussion, addressing the caretaker and the girls alternately. Then she turns to me again: He says there is no louage to Sfax; there is just no vehicle, so even if you pay, you can’t go, because there isn’t one.
There are more than a dozen white vans sitting empty in this lot right now, but no doubt there is a complicated system of ownership and timing and routes that I cannot even begin to understand. At the very least, what is lacking is a driver. The animated exchange continues. We cover the caretaker’s desire for me to just go to Sousse and from there back to Sfax, but my new friend agrees with me this would be a risky move. The caretaker circles back to wanting me to take the train, and my new friend concedes it is unlikely to pass by on time, if at all. Now she is all caught up with my saga. What will happen next?
Suddenly her face changes; she has an idea.
Je vous conduirai à Sfax dans ma voiture, she tells me, gesturing toward the road outside the station yard. And then she adds: Cent dinars. She is offering to drive me to Sfax in her own car for one hundred dinars.
I hesitate, then say, C’est beaucoup. One hundred dinar is a lot. She pushes back: you need a ride; you were going to pay 60 dinars for the louage; this is more but I have to drive back with no passengers for no money. She speaks quickly: You must decide now; later I have to go pick up my kids, but I will take you if you want, for 100 dinars.
The girls and the caretaker have stopped talking amongst themselves and are now watching us. I try to focus my thoughts. Do I have any equal or better option? One hundred dinars is about US$32. It is a steep ask by Tunisian standards, but I have it on me. Paying her that amount would be less costly than paying for a place to stay in El Jem tonight on top of the one I have already paid in Sfax and missing my online work meeting this evening. My new friend is inching away from me toward the road and her waiting car, her eyes on mine.
Ça va, I tell her, allons-y. Okay, let’s go.
Akhlem is her name, she tells me as she unlocks her little car. She has five children, which is very, very expensive, she explains as we open the doors and duck our heads to settle into the front seats. She is always tired, she continues, but she saw that I needed help, and she can use the money for her children so she offered. She pulls out a flip-phone and makes a brief call, assumably explaining her errand to someone in her family. Then she starts the engine and asks me: Okay, which way is it to Sfax?
I thought I was understanding her just fine, but this stops me. She does not know which way to go for Sfax? I have only been in El Jem for a few hours, but even I know that we just head south on this street. I point in that direction, hoping maybe I heard wrong. But then she elaborates.
Je ne suis jamais allée a Sfax, she tells me.
Jamais? I ask her, alarmed.
Jamais. C’est la première fois, she confirms.
My heart sinks. Akhlem is driving me straight into the second largest city in Tunisia, has never even been there before, and truly has no idea where we are going.
I direct her to continue on this road south out of El Jem while my mind tries to figure out how this is going to work. I have Google Maps on my phone (I am pulling up directions as she drives and I process), so I can get us to where I need to go. But then what? She is going to have to stop a dozen times on the way back out of Sfax to ask directions. And hold on: How is it that she was in such a rush to leave the louage yard to go get her kids, but she also somehow has upwards of two hours for the round-trip to Sfax before they will be expecting her? Unless ... oh god—maybe she actually has no idea how far—
C’est combien kilometre à Sfax? Vingt? Trente? How many kilometers is it to Sfax, Akhlem is asking me. Twenty? Thirty?
Non, I correct her, looking at the figure Google Maps is now providing, c’est settante-sette kilometres. It’s seventy-seven kilometers.
She whips her head to look at me fully, a bit of panic in her eyes.
How long will it take us to get there? she wants to know.
More than an hour, I tell her.
And what time is it now? she asks.
Almost 3:30, I tell her. You won’t be home until 6:00. Maybe later.
Silence in the car.
It is so clear she cannot take me to Sfax. Five minutes ago, I thought I understood the thread connecting us: my need to go to Sfax tugged at the line. Akhlem took a step toward me, making this deal and bringing the connection into a healthy level of tension. But the step she took was too big, overstraining the connection and responsibility she has to her children. Those other strings will snap unless I take a step toward her, allowing her to then move back closer to her family. She turns to me long enough to make eye contact before looking back to the road and says—with kindness, frustration, and certainty all stirred together: Vous êtes dans ma voiture. Vous êtes ma responsabilité.
You are in my car. You are my responsibility.
My mind reels at the beauty and complexity in this statement. She is of a culture where if you see an opportunity to relieve a stranger of some money, you do not hesitate to do it. And yet: her Muslim sense of hospitality and caring for visitors will not allow her to abandon me. Both these things are true. And we are in the whole chowder of it together.
I try to think through our options—and I do now think of them as our options. The best one will maximize the chances of me getting back to Sfax tonight combined with relieving Akhlem of her responsibility to me as quickly as possible. I see three possibilities. One: I can ask her to let me out right here and try to hitchhike south. I do not love that one, nor am I sure she will agree to it. Two: She can turn around and drop me back at the El Jem station, and I can just hope that damn train comes. For some reason I love that even less. Three: we keep going toward Sfax but try to find me a different ride as soon as possible. I look at the map and remember that on my way to El Jem, the louage passed through one fairly large town. I find it on Google Maps: El Hencha.
I tell Akhlem: Let’s go to El Hencha; maybe there I can find a louage to Sfax.
I have barely finished suggesting this when we reach a police checkpoint and the officer motions Akhlem to pull over. She stops the car and passes him her documents: a nifty plastic folder of various ID cards and vehicle information. The officer slowly and methodically examines each while barraging Akhlem with questions. I hear her repeatedly saying habibti and Sfax, combined with gestures in my direction. I have forgotten 99% of the Arabic I learned while living in Morocco, but I remember habibti: my friend. I have the impression that the officer is giving her a hard time about where she is going and why, and I am relieved when he finally waves us through.
The officer says for certain you will find a louage to Sfax in El Hencha, she tells me victoriously, as soon as we are rattling back down the road. She is visibly relieved. Combien de kilometres à El Hencha? she asks.
Only fifteen kilometers to go, I assure her.
You will still give me the 100 dinar, she announces.
I laugh briefly, finding it hard to believe she is serious but also knowing that she is absolutely serious.
Je crois que non, I tell her. I agreed on 100 dinar to take me to Sfax. But you are only taking me to El Hencha, which is less than halfway to Sfax.
Oui, she counters, but I didn’t know how far Sfax was.
Ça n’importe pas, that doesn’t matter, I laugh again. Je vous donne cinquante dinar. Fifty dinar seems generous to me.
But you were going to pay sixty dinar for the louage to Sfax, so you can at least give me sixty dinar, she posits.
But you are not taking me to Sfax, I repeat.
To get from El Hencha to Sfax will be very little, she insists.
I am sure she is right. But now I have swung from being touched by a sense of solidarity to feeling annoyed at her swift return to milking me for every dinar I am worth. Also, a satisfying negotiation requires me to be a little riled and resistant.
Let’s just get to El Hencha and find the louage, I tell her.
For a long moment it is silent in the car. Then Akhlem asks me: Are you married?
I cannot believe it has taken this long for that question to pop up, though of course we have been sort of busy till now.
Non, I tell her.
Non? she asks.
Non, I repeat. I prepare myself for the next, inevitable question: Why?
Instead Akhlem replies, with priceless comedic timing: Heuresement. Fortunately.
I laugh, loudly and genuinely, but stop when I look over and see pain in her face.
Les hommes sont zeros, she adds with quiet ferocity. Men are zeros.
We sit in silence for a moment, the string connecting us thickening into rough rope. I reach over and squeeze her hearty arm through the scratchy black wool of her winter jacket. I think about her five children. About their father, her husband, and how he must make her feel. About how craftily and powerfully she took an opportunity with me to enrich the lives of her kids in some small way on this one day. I am really sinking into it when Akhlem snaps out of her own wallow to finally have the reaction I had been expecting. Vous êtes seule? she asks me, obvious horror on her face. You are alone?
Oui, I respond.
Mais...toute seule? she tries again. Completely alone?
Oui, toute seule, I confirm.
Vous voyagez seule? she inquires for a third time, truly horrified. You travel alone?
Oui, I say for a third time.
She glances over, trying to gauge whether I have misunderstood the question or am possibly messing with her. Then she seems to decide I am being truthful and switches into problem-solving mode. Why am I going back to Sfax if I am just going to be there alone? she wants to know. I should come back to her house with her. There are plenty of people at her house to keep me company. I can sleep there, stay as long as I want. She will cook me delicious Tunisian food. Do I have a Tunisian phone number? No? Well then I will have to take her number, but I will have to find a Tunisian person who will call her on their phone to let her know when I’m coming. She lives north of El Jem, in the town of Souassi, in a big house on a beautiful lake. I will love it! She will drive to El Jem to pick me up there whenever I arrive. How much longer am I in Tunisia? I should stay with her the rest of the time, and we can work on finding me a Tunisian husband.
At this last bit, I crack up.
Wait, I interrupt. You just said heuresement when I said I am not married. So why do you want me to get married?
For a long moment I can see the warring priorities and fears and resentments and hopes and frustrations and expectations jousting it out across her face.
Because then you won’t be alone, she finally replies, but with some doubt in her voice.
My heart breaks a tiny bit for both of us.
Suddenly we are in El Hencha and everything happens triple-speed. We wonder where to go to find the louages and I am fruitlessly searching Google Maps and Akhlem is giving me her phone number and I am typing it into my contacts and she pulls over to ask directions and the guy on the sidewalk is waving us onward and we enter a busy roundabout with a few louages parked daringly up on curbs, blocking part of the intersection and slowing down traffic. Akhlem pulls up alongside one of the vans, stopping her car in the middle of the round-about, further clogging up the works. She leans across my lap to roll down the passenger-side window. The hand crank keeps getting stuck on my leg, but I cannot move my leg because she is sprawled across me. Eventually the window is open enough for her to yell the name of my destination above the din of traffic at a louage driver, who cups his ear at her. She yells louder, SFAX?
He gives a single nod. Akhlem sits up and playfully punches me in the arm before grabbing my phone to confirm I have entered her number correctly.
I’m going to ask him how much it costs, she tells me excitedly, opening her door into traffic and scrambling out and around the front of the car to the louage driver’s window, which is so close I could easily have asked him myself. But Akhlem is going to get her sixty dinar and she is willing to hustle for it.
Quatre dinar! Quatre dinar à Sfax! She spins around from the driver’s window to mine to tell me the good news: just four dinar to go to Sfax from here. She opens the passenger door but then blocks my exit until I have burrowed into the depths of the messenger bag and emerged with three twenty-dinar bills. She slips them from my hand straight up her sleeve like a magician. Then she pulls me up out of her car and protectively rushes me around to the sliding passenger door of the louage.
You are going to call me and come stay with me, oui? You have my number, so you will have someone call it, and you will come to my house and I will cook for you, oui?
Oui, I tell her, not sure if I mean it. I would love to visit her for a single lunch, see her house and lake view, and taste her Tunisian cooking. But she cannot imagine the joy I get from exploring alone, or how firmly I do not want to spend the next week sequestered in her world, repelling arranged marriages. Not to mention, the interaction would surely turn back into a monetary transaction at some point. Would I just get stranded in El Jem all over again and have to pay her another sixty dinar for another ride to another louage? Would I get the full story of her unhappy marriage to a loser guy and descend into an empathetic depression? If she did not ask me for more money, would it be unethical for me to let her spend the money and time to pick me up and host me and feed me? Would spending more time together somehow diminish this perfect half-hour in which our lives have intersected, when we have tugged on opposite ends of the same thread in the web and found each other?
All these thoughts duke it out in my mind as I climb into the van. Miraculously, I have gotten the last empty seat. We will be on the road within seconds. Before going to claim my spot in the back row, I turn back to Akhlem to say goodbye.
Promise me, she says, clutching at my hand, at my heart. Promise me you’ll call me and come to my house.
I look into her eyes and say, sincerely: Insh’Allah. Allah willing. We leave it in Allah’s hands, and we trust that whichever way it goes is the right way.
Insh’Allah, she echoes, still holding my hand. I smile at her for a long beat and she smiles back before releasing me and sliding the door shut between us. As I sink into my seat, the louage is already rolling into traffic in the direction of Sfax, the spool of thread connecting us rolling out fast as our lives diverge again, the line itself unbreakable.
