Ahmed [1960-2002] [English translation]

Late eighties, she visits her motherland

Unknown man asks for my mother's hand

She doesn't want to marry

But out of respect for her parents would never say no

And while in Germany the wall's just fallen

Morocco's building a 2000-miles defence wall

So, escape over the Mediterranean

2-room flat, Frankfurt

She takes him here with her

And he doesn't do anything for income, thinks money just makes itself

She pays the rent and cleans hotels

He doesn't feel like adjusting for the job

And quickly ends up in the underworld

And so he goes out to sell drugs

While his heavily pregnant wife sits at home

9th month and he - doesn't show up anymore

As for her - growing debt and growing belly

Even with missing person reports nothing can be done

She's alone and married to a ghost

I'm born - mum's family is there

And my father is hunted by private detectives

Later we learn he'd been deported years ago

Serving his prison term in a jail at Nador

Is released with a cancer diagnosis

Comes up with the idea of seeing his family again

Redemands us as if we were his property

Even that he doesn't do himself, only his brother-in-law is sent

Threatens to kidnap me if he sees me

From this day I wasn't allowed to play outside alone

I've never seen, never heard him, never understood

But everyone says I'm the spitting image of him

When he died it wasn't a big cut for me

I was too young and he'd always been dead to me

And now I wonder how you talk about the dead

I hear so much but have never heard his version

However time goes by - part of him remains

Ahmed, 1960 to 2002