I'm anxious, I'm nervous during the day with the idea of calling Hakim. I want to call him. I want to meet him. At the same time, I can't avoid thinking that it would be easier if something went wrong, if he changed his mind and wouldn't see me. Then I could say I tried, I went through with it, I wanted to make a serious docmentary, but I couldn't meet this dangerous man. I can't think of anything else while eating breakfast. In the cafe, everyone watches a spokesman from Hizbollah on television making a statement about prisoner exchanges with Israel. Abdullah seems utterly uninterested, hardly looking at the screen. I'm struggling to understand the Arabic.
In the afternoon, after waiting patiently through Abdullah's stalling and hesitating, I decide to call Hakim. But Abdullah won't let me call him directly. With no reason that I can understand, he suddenly doesn't like the idea of me talking to Hakim. He tries to tell me what to tell him, tell me where to call him from and when. He tells me first he'll call Hakim, then tell him I'm going to call again in ten minutes. This should give me enough time to get to my hotel room and record the conversation for the film. He calls Hakim from my mobile phone, but no one answers. Twenty minutes later he tries again and Hakim agrees to talk to me.
Back in my hotel room, I'm trying to improvise a way to record my conversation with Hakim for the film. It all seems very impractical. I've had to buy a head set for my mobile phone, the kind you see people talking into in the street that makes them look like they're talking to themselves. I've taped one of the ear pieces to the microphone and I'm wearing the other one. I can hear the phone clearly, I can also hear the camera motor running. I'm looking at myself in the screen of the camera with wires hanging everywhere. Whenever I move, the whole setup crackles loudly, the microphone pics up every movement of my lips because I have to sit so close to the camera. It looks ridiculous and I almost can't conentrate on the conversation I'm worried so much about it.
The conversation ends up somewhere between comical and illicit:
"This is Saeed, the friend of Abdullah's"
"What is it?" (immediately he gives up on pleasantries)
"I wanted to ask if we could meet tonight"
"Saeed, I can't hear you. The sound isn't clear"
(I realise I'm talking into the handset, but the microphone is on the wire of the ear phones)
(holding the wire in my other hand and yelling)"I WANTED TO ASK IF WE COULD MEET TONIGHT"
"Okay. I can hear you now. Seven at the place I told Abdullah about"
"The same place you met him yesterday?"
"The same. Whats your name?"
"Saeed"
"Saeed what?"
(at this point I wonder if I'm supposed to give him a fake name, or tell him I only go by first name. But by the time I think about it I've already given him my full name)
Abdullah says he'll come with me for the meeting, though I said I'd rather be alone so I could interview Hakim in private. He comes anyway. I pack the camera into my blue Puma bag, the very conspicuous secret camera that I'm beginning to lose faith in. I feel like I'm going for a job interview. It's that kind of tension. I've made a list of questions I want to ask Hakim, I can't remember any of them now. I start the camera recording on the walk to the meeting point, before we see Hakim, and I keep the camera rolling as we shake hands, introduce ourselves, and start walking. Hakim doesn't know I'm recording.
We walk from the meeting point- a small market square- to a dark road curving downhill and leading eventually to a high view of the port. I'm holding the camera in my left hand, in between Hakim and I as we walk, and I immediately start asking him questions about how he makes his money. I'm surprised, now that I think about the moment, that I felt comfortable so quickly. I think it was after I realised that Hakim was more afraid of me than I was of him. Yes, I told him I would pay him for the interview, and he was still in control, he knew where we were and what I wanted from him. But above all I could always turn him in if I suddenly got nervous. But he had nothing on me. When this became clear to me, I was relaxed and confident enough to ask him everything I wanted to know.
When we finally reached the end of the road, the view of Tangier port from where Abdullah was to make his crossing, I asked Hakim if I could record. I expected he would agree, after all Abdullah told me last night he had agreed to be filmed- all except his face to protect his identity. But Hakim refused. I told him it would only be his hands, for example, or his torso, nothing to identify him by. But he was too nervous. He didn't agree.
There followed a decision I wasn't prepared to make. I knew the camera was already rolling, Hakim didn't. I could reach into my bag now and stop the camera. I knew that's what he would want. Or I could ignore it. I hadn't even mentioned it yet, he might not even know it was in the bag. I paused, looking at the bag, waiting to see if there would be a reaction from Hakim. I panicked. I fumbled and hesitated. Then I put the camera down, still filming, on the low wall surrounding the road and kept talking.
I expected something to go wrong. I expected Hakim to point to the camera, "What's in the bag?" and then knock me out and run. I expected him to pull a knife, steal the camera and the money in my wallet. I expected him to lie about smuggling people into Spain, to finally get too nervous about the idea of talking to a "journalist" (as I had described myself) and walk away.
But none of that happened. He told me everything, and I recorded it all.
