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