by Peter Corris
'See what you mean.' Bright said. 'Point taken. First we eat, then we work.'
Marsha rolled off the bed. She unzipped her bag and rummaged in it. Bright watched her, admiring the trim lines of her body. Marsha's shape was not spectacular but she was perfectly proportioned. Bright found the harmony very erotic. She pulled out a red and white striped swimsuit. 'First we swim,' she said. 'God knows when we'll next get a chance.'
'Okay. Have to be careful not to swallow the water, but. Look, I've got some pills . . .'
'You've got pills for everything. I don't swallow water when I swim.'
'You might.'
Marsha caught the pill Bright threw her and tossed it back. 'No, Vic. I don't want a pill.'
'Pills're good. I didn't get airsick on the flight.'
'Neither did I. Neither did anyone.'
'I would, if I didn't take a pill.'
'God, some hot-shot reporter.'
'Just cautious. You swim and I'll see about locating Abdullah Hamil.'
Marsha swam thirty laps of the pool while Bright cashed travellers' cheques at the hotel desk and talked in English and pidgin French to the hotel gatekeeper and several of the carriage drivers who deposited and collected tourists in the road outside the hotel. After Marsha had showered and they'd eaten a salad and drunk some Heineken in the snack bar by the pool, they both slept for two hours. When she woke Marsha complained of a pain in her stomach.
'Travelling up or down?' Bright said.
'Down. Oh, shit!'
Marsha leapt off the bed and lurched to the bathroom. As Bright dressed he could hear her moaning and cursing. He ordered a bottle of Evian water from room service and was shaking pills into the palm of his hand when she emerged, grey-faced, from the bathroom. 'If you say I told you so I'll throw up all over you.'
'Thought you said the movement was downwards.'
'Now I'm not so sure. Oh, Vic, I feel lousy.'
Bright uncapped the bottle and poured a glassful. He held out a capsule. 'Take this now and another one in a couple of hours. Keep 'em down and you'll be all right.'
'What if I can't keep them down?'
'Try hard. If you can't, take one of these and one of these and you might be all right.'
Marsha groaned and wrapped herself in a blanket. 'Where're you going?'
'To look at carpets,' Bright said.
9
Craft Project—Journal, Morocco, 15 September
I met Ali outside the Hotel Atlas and paid him the fifty dirhams up front. We took a carriage to Djemaa el Fna, a huge square which marks the beginning of the souks—the markets. The square is never empty Ali tells me, there is never a time when there are not people in it—eating, smoking, talking and sleeping at night and selling like mad things in the daytime. Just now there were groups of people huddled around carts and trucks and stalls. Despite all the people there was a stillness about the place as if it was exhausted by the day's activity. I could see where the acrobats had performed—jugglers' rings and chairs and hoops lay about and there were piles of skins and pips and stones and scraps of paper that indicated where food had been sold.
'Busy day, Ali?' I said.
Ali nodded. 'Always, sir.'
I'd got onto Ali through one of the carriage drivers who told me he was a great-nephew of Abdullah Hamil, the carpet seller. He said he could have him at the hotel at eight for twenty dirhams and he came through. Ali was a thin young man of about twenty-five with a wispy moustache and an apologetic manner. He wore a long, slightly grubby white robe, carried a canvas bag over his shoulder and he sniffed a lot. We stayed in the carriage right up to a dark tunnel that was one of the entrances to the main souk. I paid the carriage driver and forked out more money to a man on guard near the tunnel. The donkey's hooves clattered away on the rough, broken bitumen.
We plunged into the darkness; after a few steps I realised that it wasn't completely dark. There was no roof and some moonlight shone in through a sort of latticework up above the narrow street. I couldn't see much but Ali wasn't having any trouble. He jerked at my sleeve to pull me clear of a motor cycle standing right in my path and he elbowed and bumped me to keep me on the right track. He hissed through his teeth when we had to make a turn.
'It's dark,' I said.
He sniffed. 'No. It used to be dark when the souks had a roof of rushes. But there was a fire.'
'When?'
'Not long, about twenty-five years ago.'
That was encouraging; if twenty-five years ago was recently, another thirty wasn't that far back. We walked on through the dark, narrow, twisting streets. I was totally dependent on Ali; my sense of direction left me in the first ten minutes. The souks smelled of old dirt and fresh straw, animal dung and spices. I nearly jumped out of my skin when a donkey brayed somewhere close by. It was hot and I was sweating. Generally speaking, the place was quiet, but there was an air of haphazard activity—an occasional tapping and rattling. I stopped to wipe my face and Ali disappeared immediately.
'Ali! Ali!'
'Sir.' He was back beside me. He moved like a shadow.
I patted my pocket for something to wipe away the sweat.
For the first time a note of alarm entered his voice. 'You cannot smoke here, sir. The risk of fire is too great.'
I found a couple of tissues and dabbed my forehead. 'I don't smoke. How the hell do you find your way around in here?'
'I was born here. My father and mother had a shop in the souk Btana.'
'What's that?'
'The market of the sheepskins. My brother has the shop now. But I do not think you have come to Morocco to buy sheepskins.'
'No. To make a film.'
'I see many films. Too many. I was studying to be a schoolteacher but I saw too many films and talked too much in the cafes. Now I am a guide.'
'Your English is good.'
'My French is better and my German is good also. It must be so. The tourists do not speak Arabic.'
'Do people live here?'
'No. The merchants are not supposed to be here at night but some of them stay. My uncle is permitted to do as he pleases. He is an important man. We are almost there. Here is the street of the apothecaries and there is la Criée Berbère.'
I could smell the apothecarys' stalls—they gave off strong, dry aromas that I couldn't identify. Ali was pointing to a narrow passageway running between two stalls with heavy wooden shutters drawn across their open fronts. I became aware then of the great difference between this shopping centre and those of Europe, America and Australia—no glass.
'This is the place where the slaves were sold,' Ali said, falling into his guide patter. 'The slaves were mostly black Africans from the centre of the continent and the markets were held from Wednesday through Friday. A strong negro man could fetch £20 and a beautiful woman more than £100. These prices were paid in the year 1900. The French stopped the markets when they occupied Marrakech in 1919. Now this square is the place of the carpet sellers.'
I couldn't see my nose in front of my face, but I got a sense of a square with a lot of entrances, holes slightly blacker than the rest of the darkness on all sides. Ali led me off to the right and down a set of steps. I was surprised to feel something smooth under my feet after the rough cobblestones and paving. Ali produced a torch from the his bag and shone it on a marble floor. The floor was very elaborate with a hunting scene picked out in mosaic and lots of gilt worked into the decoration.
'A famous thing,' Ali said, 'and the beginning of my uncle's shop.'
We crossed the floor and went between a set of frames with carpets hanging from them. We entered a chamber with another, less elaborate marble floor. Ali shone his torch around. The room was piled with rolled and stacked carpets reaching to the roof. Carpets hung from the walls and from the roof itself. There was a soft glow in the far corner of the room and as we got closer I saw it came from a powerful battery torch placed on a pile of carpets and shining up towards the roof. A man was sitting on a chair, half i
n and half out of the glow. He wore a long grey gown and highly polished black shoes with no socks. He was very old and wrinkled. His forehead sloped sharply back to his bald skull, his eyes were deep set, his nose beaky.
'Mr Victor Bright, this is my uncle, Mr Abdullah Hamil.'
The old man extended his hand. 'Honoured to meetcha, Mr Bright.'
We shook. His grip was strong. His voice was young, almost shockingly so, and the American accent was a surprise. He chuckled when he saw my reaction.
'You're surprised at the way I talk, Mr Bright?'
'Like an American,' I said.
'Sure. I went to Chicago in 1933, stayed a couple of years. Then I worked for them in the war. All the English I got, I got from the Americans. I listen to Voice of America, regular. Some of my old army buddies come to see me once in a while and we chew the fat. Sit down, Mr Bright. Sit down.'
Ali had brought up another chair, placed it silently on the carpet and vanished. I heard his sandals slap on the marble and wondered where he'd gone. I sat. My knees were only inches away from Hamil's. He reached into a pocket in his djellaba and took out a small wooden box with inlaid filigree in the lid. He opened it. 'Snuff,' he said. 'No smoking in here so I gotta take snuff. Try it?'
I shook my head. He put a pinch to each nostril and sniffed. Then he tilted his head back. The veins and cords in his neck were like those of an old turtle. He sneezed loudly and sniffed again. 'Okay, that should hold me. What can I do for you, Mr Bright?'
'I'm here to make a film about two Englishmen who crossed the Sahara in the late 1930s, Marrakech to Timbuktu. Their names were Basil and Richard Craft.'
I watched him very carefully as I said the names. After Devendish I was alert for any reaction. I thought I got one—a slight tightening of the muscles around the caved-in mouth, a twitch of the nostrils.
Incongruously, he said, 'Yeah?'
'Yes. I wonder if you knew them?'
'Sure I did. A foreigner in Marrakech before the war and I knew him. You can bet on it.'
'I'd be grateful for any help you can give me, Mr Hamil.'
'Like what?'
'What sort of men they were. How their expedition was conducted. And especially what they did when they returned here after the crossing.'
'Why d'you say that—especially?'
I realised I'd let something slip and he'd seized on it. Old he might be but he was no rambling, memory-damaged academic. The wrinkles in his sloping forehead above his snow-white eyebrows deepened as he stared straight at me.
'It's something of a mystery,' I said slowly. 'Basil Craft wrote a book about his experiences and . . .'
'A book?'
'Yes. Are you surprised, Mr Hamil?'
'I am. It would have to be, as my GI buddies would have said, a crock. Go on.'
'He speaks of his fascination for Marrakech and of his wish to return here after making the crossing. But there's nothing in the book about a second visit. You did know him, didn't you?'
'Sure I knew him. I helped him to outfit the expedition, hired animals and guides—same thing to Mr Craft.'
'What do you mean?'
'Arabs are supposed to be cruel, Mr Bright. Right?'
Tricky question. Not rhetorical but no answer. I said nothing.
'Basil Craft was the cruellest man I've ever seen, and I've seen some doozies.'
I was suddenly aware of the warmth and age of the still air. It was filled with the smells of wool and wax and whatever else they use to make carpets. I was wearing a T-shirt and cotton pants with sneakers. Light enough gear, but I was uncomfortable. The neck of the T-shirt chafed and I ran my finger around it, pulling it away from my skin. My discomfort was only partly due to the hot, stuffy air. I was also reacting to getting a strong scent of the trail of the brothers Craft.
'I'll be interested in anything you can tell me,' I said.
'Maybe. But I'd like to know a few things myself first. I haven't heard of Craft or his brother for fifty years. What in hell happened to them?'
I gave him a brief résumé. He listened closely and nodded from time to time but remained silent throughout. He stayed silent when I'd finished. Then he snapped his fingers and said something in Arabic. Ali appeared from the shadows carrying a thermos and some small cups. He unscrewed the thermos and poured some hot, green liquid into the cups. 'Tea,' Hamil said. 'Moroccan hospitality. Can't light a fire in here. Whole goddamn place could go up, so I asked my nephew to bring some along. Drink.'
I tasted the tea, which was sickly sweet. I seldom drink tea anyway, and black without sugar when I do. I thought that if I drank this I'd end up as sick as Marsha. But a writer has to earn his material. I took another sip. 'About the Crafts . . .'
'Hold on.' Hamil drained his cup and signalled for Ali to pour him another. Then he went through the snuff and sneezing routine again. It occurred to me that he was thinking, judging, deciding perhaps. 'You reckon you're going to follow Craft's route. What route is that?'
I'd memorised it. 'Pretty much the old caravan route. According to the maps in his book and some things his brother wrote . . .'
'The brother was a writer too?'
'Yes. Was he cruel as well?'
'No comment. Go on.'
'From Marrakech to Timbuktu by way of Taghazi, Taodin and Arawan. Sorry about the pronunciation.'
'I get what you mean. Quite a trip. How're you going to do it?'
'By helicopter.'
Hamil's head jerked back and he almost spilled his tea. 'Helicopter. That's a good one. Helicopter! I remember one of the Yanks laughed at Craft's caravan. Said he should get a plane to Timbuktu. Craft knocked him down and kicked the shit outa him. He was a big guy too, the Yank, but Craft woulda killed him if his brother hadn't pulled him off. Caused a bit of a stink. Could've screwed up the whole thing. But Craft was a hothead.'
'That's very interesting,' I said. 'I should have a tape-recorder running but I didn't expect you to know so much.'
Hamil shook his head. 'No tape-recorders, Mr Bright. Is this the real McCoy this story, the truth?'
'Yes.'
'For television?'
I nodded.
'I've seen television,' he said. 'I wouldn't say there was a helluva lot of truth in it.'
'It varies.'
'Things do. You're from where?'
I told him.
'Australia. You've come a hell of a long way to learn the truth.'
He'd jumped to the conclusion that it was the Craft story that had brought me to the other side of the world in the first place. The story ended in Australia after all. I didn't disabuse him.
'There's no-one still alive who went on that caravan. Not that I know of.'
'How about Omar Oufkir?'
'Him? The French hung him in 1948. And the only thing wrong with that is that it was about thirty years too late.'
I was so overwhelmed by this information that I accidentally took another sip of the tea. Hamil saw the face I pulled and laughed.
'You seem like a reasonable sort of guy, Mr Bright. I'd like to help you but there's a few things in the way.'
'If it's a question of money.'
'It might be, but that's not the important thing. It's to do with people.'
'I don't understand.'
'Don't worry. Here's the deal. You go on your helicopter. Follow the slave and salt trails, but take a little detour to Wadi Djoul. That's in Mali or Mauritania. I forget which, never did keep track of those new countries. You study the Crafts' maps and books real good and take a look around Wadi Djoul. Keep your eyes open.'
'Looking for what?'
'I'm an old fart, indulge me. If I wanta be mysterious let me. Go into the desert, Mr Bright. Even a town Arab like me believes that all wisdom is found in the desert. So go and grab yourself a bit of wisdom and then come back and talk to me. And maybe, just maybe, I'll talk to you.'
10
Bright paid Ali one hundred dirhams instead of the fifty agreed on and advised him that he w
ould be back to visit his uncle again.
'Thank you, Mr Bright,' Ali said. 'But do not wait too long. My uncle is an old man and he will soon die.'
That didn't help Bright's mood and he was silent on the carriage ride back to the hotel. Marsha was deeply asleep and there were no signs in the bathroom basin or toilet that she had suffered further distress. He took his computer into the bathroom and shut the door. He switched on and sat on the toilet seat for an hour, recording the meeting with Abdullah Hamil. Ali's words nagged in his mind. Along with all the confusion we've now got a time imperative, he thought. I hope Andy's made some smooth arrangements.
McKinnon had. In the morning Marsha, a little unsteady but able to function, made several phone calls. She spoke in fluent French, scribbled down numbers, spelled names and coped with delays. Bright, who had been for a long walk earlier and had ordered a late breakfast in the room, picked at a slice of melon.
'D'accord,' Marsha said. 'Merci.'
'How come you smile when you put down the phone and I swear?'
'Technique,' Marsha said. 'The phone is my scalpel, my magic wand.'
'It's my blood-pressure raiser. Okay, phone fairy, how do we look?'
'Good. Jean-Luc is coming around to see us in an hour.'
'And Jean-Luc is?'
'The best freelance TV filmer in Morocco according to Andy. He's just winding up a documentary on the Sahara pipeline. This means he's got a crew, transport and clearance to work in any country in North Africa. That arrarangement's only got a couple of weeks to run so we have to grab him fast. Andy's a genius.'
'Yeah. This guy won't come cheap.'
'He'll come in a package, that's the important thing. Putting together the pieces is what costs big bucks. I read your journal entry for last night. It sounds promising. This story's got balls.'
'Big bucks, balls, what're you doing? Auditioning for CBS?'
'Why're you in a bad mood? We're off and running.'
'I can't find this Wadi Djoul on the map. I'm supposed to find wisdom there and I don't know where the hell it is.'
Marsha leaned across the bed and speared a piece of melon. She kissed Bright and put her hand between his legs. 'Don't worry. Jean-Luc'll know. He sounds like he knows everything. Move the tray aside, love. I'm better now. I'm horny and I want to be on top.'
