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BOSTON, Massachusetts - "There are too many Irish here," Safi said. "My wife is Irish and she was a very bad woman. Very bad indeed. Yes, very bad."

I met Safi soon after I got here. Already he was telling me his life story. Or, at any rate, his wife's life story. She was Irish and he was Moroccan, he said, from Casablanca. Was Moroccan, past tense, because for the last decaade he has lived in America and become an American, helped by the $8,000 he paid to an American woman for whom love and marriage clearly had a price.

"Maybe the Irish people say there are too many Moroccans," I suggested, remembering to s;ile.

"There are Moroccans here," he replied, not quite answering the question, "but we don't drink. The Irish, oh they drink! And not just a drink but..."

He searched for the best words.

"They drink to fall over?"

"Yes, they drink to fall over."

"And your wife was like that?"

"She was terrible, a really bad woman."

Once a man has started on a story like that, my sheer curiosity and frank nosiness refuses to let him drop it.

"Oh?", I said.

"Very bad. She used to drink, she used to smoke 60 cigarettes a day. We were pals then, just friends. I said to her, 'I don't like seeing you doing that?' She said, 'Why? Because of your religion?' And I said that had nothing to do with it. I am a Muslim and I don't drink and I don't eat pork, but I said to her, 'No, I don't like seeing it because it'd bad for your health.'

"Well, she took no notice. And there she got ill and she went into the hospital and she said 'If I get out of this alive, I swear I'm going to stop.' And she came put of the hospital and she was still unwell and now she couldn't get a job, because she had no green card, because she never thought ahead, never considered risks.

"Well, we were still just friends and I used to give her $40 a week, just to buy food, you know? And then she still couldn't get a job because she was an illegal immigrant and I said, 'Well, OK, I'll marry you.' She said she felt comfortable with me and I knew I was comfortable with her. And that was 15 years ago and she is the best thing that ever happened to me and we have a son of 12 and two younger daughters and the only thing I regret is that I didn't do it earlier.

"I've never suggested she should become a Muslim because religion, it doesn't matter if you're Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, there's only one God. One God. But she told me the other day that she wants to convert to Islam.

"One day, I know, we will live in Morocco. She likes it there. She likes the people there. There is a life. People relax, they talk in the streets, they drink mint tea. Here is no life. People are richer but it's work, work, work. No time to enjoy life, to have friends.

"One day, my friend, yes, we will go back to Morocco."

I waited for him to say "Inshallah." But he didn't.