Mad Nomad
Mission nebulous, foot swollen to twice its size, I hobbled down Avenue Bourguiba
toward the vertical red Monoprix Sign, passing wrought iron street posts, boarded kiosks, and immaculate traffic circles, familiar in design but curiously out of place. A column of pink smoke wafted in the horizon from El Fouled, Tunisia's only steel mill. At first impression, Menzel Bourguiba was a good place to begin, an urban tabula rasa, whose disparate energies and ambiguous identity matched my own.
The driver pointed in this direction when I asked about a cool drink. I walked into the narrow pastry shop in the shadow of the Monoprix sign. The proprietor was an aging man with sallow skin and a red kefia cap perched on a thinning crown of white hair. His gossiping eyes asked a thousand questions, then answered nine hundred and ninety-nine, as he poured the lemonade.
"Are you a tourist?"
“No,” I replied.
"I didn't think so," he proceeded as if he knew all along. "Menzel Bourguiba has nothing to see."
He poured another glass of lemonade. I swigged it down, thinking it was an odd remark for a local businessman to make.
"I'm not from here, but from the Sahel," he said as if responding to my silent observation, "Ten years ago, I came here on business, but there is no business here. Half the town is unemployed; the other half works in France. So I was forced to stay.”
His plight was paradoxical but oddly familiar and American—the pioneer prospector stranded in a place bereft of promised treasure.
The man in the red cap talked like he knew everyone and everything about Menzel Bourguiba. But when I asked about an apartment, he squinted, shrugged, put his finger in his cheek, and let his eyes wander to the corners of the ceilings, chasing elusive trains of thought. "Is the apartment for you?" he asked.
"I’m the new Bourguiba School teacher," I replied grandiosely.
"Bourguiba School?" A doubt fluttered in his voice. An instant of recognition glimmered on his sallow face, but quickly faded into stupefaction as he realized he that he had mistaken this institution for another. Then he remembered.
“Yes, yes,” he said, wagging a finger as his memory rallied, “Only a year ago…or maybe two. There was an American jeune homme here in Menzel. I believe he, too, was an English teacher but…then he disappeared.”
“He probably went home," I replied, fending off the ominous suggestion.
"I don’t remember the details, jeune homme," The old man raised an eyebrow, then laughed dryly,
“All I know is that he is gone and you are here. That will be five hundred millims.”
.