A TALE OF TUNIS

On a journey across the Tunisian capital, from the medina to the suburbs that line the Mediterranean coast, Zain Khalid discovers ancient ruins and modern art, good humor and warm hospitality.

- Zain Khalid

ARRIVING IN TUNIS, I NOTICE a regiment of topiary trees, seemingly uprooted from Versailles, lining the roads into the city, and walls dressed in an Andalusian palette: honeycomb, vermilion, gold, ocher. Our car passes a boy with outstretched hands who attempts to sell me something, though I can't tell what-peaches, coconuts, ceramics, a horse? Ridah, my driver, speeds up.

We proceed to La Marsa, a coastal city 10 miles northeast of Tunis with a French international school named after Gustave Flaubert. (The writer visited Tunisia in 1858 and set his novel Salammbô in ancient Carthage, the ruins of which stand outside Tunis.) My first night is scented with jasmine. I go to sleep to a soundtrack of dogs and midnight roosters.

That evening at Dar El Marsa, my hotel, I meet members of the Tunisian bourgeoisie, and over brik (a savory pastry), we talk about Tunisia's suspended parliament. We discuss Kais Saied, the current president, who sacked the government in July 2021, citing widespread corruption while seizing absolute power for himself.

"He controls the story," says one of the other guests, a Tunisian on a staycation. "He is making decisions with five people, his inner circle. No, in fact, he is making decisions by himself."

"Why is unemployment so high?" I ask.

"Education wasn't prioritized in any of the previous administrations. The ambitious left the country. Brain drain. Simple math," he replies.

"It truly has been much worse," says a Swedish expat who fell in love with the city in the 1980s and stayed. "In fact, it's kind of lovely. This... this..." He says a word in Arabic that I don't understand. Translating it later, I realize the closest English analog is stasis.