Alexandra Singer

by Tea at the Grand Tazi

  It was a social ritual. This was where the male fantasy of the east came alive. Women of all shapes and sizes walked around unabashed, gossiping and laughing with one another.

  A woman came to exfoliate her and began with some abrasive cleaning, before she was doused with a bucket of cold water. But as Maia lay on her front and the woman continued to clean her, she was only able to think about the life of this woman. The attendant was silent, simply going about her job with methodical, mechanical actions. Maia sensed a misery about this woman, and felt guilty. This was supposed to be the ultimate Moroccan experience, but instead Maia could only think about how it must be to spend one’s time scraping the backs of more privileged women. The steam was dense as she entered the next room, and she went to sit on one of the tiled benches. A woman came to sit next to her, smiling at Maia.

  “I am Safira.” Her hair was as short as that of a boy and her eyes were huge and dark, her breasts feminine and full. Maia could think only of how she would paint those eyes.

  Over time, Maia told her about the Historian, about her art, and about the Grand Tazi and Mahmoud, but she did not tell her about Armand. For the first time in months, Maia felt the joy and closeness of communicating with another woman.

  Maia began to frequent the hamam daily, avoiding the Grand Tazi. The two women would pass their evenings together, wondering about the streets. She took Safira back to the Historian’s house, and they passed Ina on the stairs. Again, Maia felt her penetrating gaze, but still she said nothing.

  Maia had never kissed a woman before, but on the rooftop she felt a sharp, sweet taste and their new adoration for one another unfolded. A few weeks went by and Maia realised that the Historian was still away, and in that time she was yet to visit the Grand Tazi. With Safira’s presence, Maia found her art was improving, the colours becoming clearer and brighter. She even began to be less dependent on her supplies.

  Maia painted Safira in countless poses. In her paintings and studies, as in reality, the charismatic presence of her model was inescapable. She felt that the best depiction of Safira was in the nude. She lounged in a blue armchair, facing toward the viewer but at an angle, both hands held nonchalantly resting behind her head.

  Maia’s paintings were not decorative or superficial, as Armand and the Historian had suggested, but her characters advanced purposefully through the shades of red, carrying a fierce erotic charge. The broad, choppy strokes suggested an extreme disturbance; the stories suggested weakness, an enforced surrender. Looking at it she saw that each painting was a confrontation. There was something coarse and primitive in them.

  Safira looked up at her from beneath lowered lids as Maia told Safira about her broken past. “We do not keep all our old sentiments. The mind is cultivated enough already. You must learn to let go.”

  “People are always telling me that. But I don’t know how.”

  Maia believed that finally she had found a friend, an ally who supported her, not competed with her. They shared everything, Maia’s bed, Maia’s body, Maia’s ritual. They shared more than Maia could ever have imagined.

  As they lay together on the bed, Maia told Safira about the story told by Larbi. “I didn’t like this one. It was unfair.”

  “I think I may have heard that storyteller. He tells a good story. You weren’t really expecting a happy ending, were you? I’ve heard that tale so many times before.” Maia saw that her eyes puckered up on one side with contempt; for a moment she was unattractive.

  “Indulge me,” Maia said. “I am interested in your opinion. I thought it was unfair to the girl. She was condemned to a lonely life outside the boundaries of society. Silenced in the oasis of the unconscious.”

  Safira let out a slightly embarrassed laugh. “You are just as poetic as they told me. But that snake was just another representation of the male organ, the all powerful male devil. Don’t be fooled!”

  Maia sat back and looked at the woman before her. Safira had no sympathy for the girl in the story. The girl is a victim; she sacrifices herself for her brother. She is captured and dominated, she has no independence, and when she is worthless she is cast out and abandoned.

  Maia tried to explain this train of thought to Safira. “Do you not think that the story perhaps shows how there is no place in the symbolic order for a used woman? And that when she is ruined she too becomes the stuff of men’s nightmares?”

  “Do not analyse so much, Maia. You have far too much time to think.”

  “But it is true! Look, they have no time for female sexuality! If they want to talk about it, it is in these huge metaphors!”

  “Please, leave it Maia. It really is true what they said about you.”

  “Who?”

  Safira tapped the side of her nose. “Just people we both know. No more questions!”

  Despite the seed of niggling doubt, Maia stayed with her. For the first time since she had arrived, Maia believed that she might be coming free and indifferent to shame and the rigid boundaries. She touched Safira’s golden skin, that offered itrself to Maia’s gaze, flaunting, hands clasped behind her head in a smiling gesture of natural superiority.

  “Show me which position you wish me to take,” said Safira, with the strong tilt of her chin, her eyes seeking out Maia’s approval.

  Maia’s eyes drank in the elongated proportions of Safira’s body. In painting her, Maia felt that she was painting herself. “My mirror image,” she murmured softly.

  Safira enthralled her; when they were together the sky became a darker, more vivid blue. It was Safira’s sense of abandonment that she envied. But still a hollow laugh came out from inside her, she did not know where, and there was a deep, abiding coldness tight in her stomach.

  Maia still saw Armand. Her cravings for him and the drug not yet diminished.

  Maia liked these daytime assignments, the lethargic afternoons and the comfort of the bed.

  “I know Safira. I know all about you both.” Armand said to her.

  “How?”

  “I have known Safira for many years. Did you imagine that I didn’t know?” He gripped her arm, so hard she knew there would be bruises later.

  He tried to press more of the drug on her, more than she felt herself able to resist.

  “You can no longer continue like this. You owe me.”

  “I owe you nothing, Armand. You introduced me to this.”

  Still they slept together, but now she sensed in him not only frustration, but also boredom.

  And so the days passed in this mechanical way, with Maia growing used to the ways in which she used her body. She told Safira about the man who had caused her such discomfort, to gauge her reaction. To her great dismay, Safira seemed genuinely oblivious. She knew that Safira had met Armand. Why is Safira lying to me, she thought. But she said nothing. The seed of doubt, growing stronger.

  “This could be another journey for you,” whispered Safira, snorting the odourless white powder from Maia’s stomach. Safira had obtained this new pure batch from some unknown source she would not reveal.

  “I don’t need Armand anymore. We have your source now. Armand is not reliable.”

  Safira sat back, and stroked Maia’s thigh. “But he could be. Take me to him.”

  They went together to the Grand Tazi. But it was different somehow. She realised that no music was playing, there were just a handful of guests, seated around the pool. Such a drastic change from the lively, welcoming place that Maia had first walked into, only three months before. Mahmoud seemed dejected. “The season is now over.”

  Armand cared nothing for her, but Maia suspected a sense of neglect under his arrogant façade. He wanted to be worshipped. His ego would not allow him to be usurped, and particularly not by a woman.

  His efforts turned to Safira as they entered the room. Armand’s flirtatious manner and Safira’s peculiarly coquettish attitude, a side of which she had not seen before, were a sickening sight. Maia realised she was unsurprised by this, nor was she hurt. She was simpl
y surprised at herself, now she had become used to the deceit of this place and its inhabitants. How had she not thought of this sooner?

  At the Historian’s riad, Safira came towards the bed. She entered through the gap in the curtains, and the tangibility of the situation now frightened Maia.

  Armand closed the door and went across to Maia. “Is this what you want?” He asked, as if giving her a choice.

  And before she could answer, there came a rhythmic moving. She could hear Armand’s rasping breath, as she watched his silhouette in the candlelight. Her hips twisted in an imitation of desire. A woman’s voice was whispering eagerly and limbs were wrapping themselves around her; a man’s voice was commanding her. The smell lingered in her room, she sat numb, feeling helpless, just as Mahmoud had said, a fly in their ointment, a fly sticking and caught.

  The two girls twined and entwined, spread on the bed like lizards skewered by the man’s desire. Their pleasure unfurled as Maia felt Safira’s tongue in her mouth. A sweet pleasure enveloped them, until the man stepped out. From that moment Maia felt his presence as unwelcome as Safira’s. She lay there in the darkness, at the foot of the bed, feeling empty.

  “You had better put your face in cold water,” Safira laughed a deep, cynical sound.

  Maia looked around her, dazed. A sense of shame and utter disgust flooded through her entire body.

  She stood trembling after they left, shocked at how they had been able to abandon all inhibitions. The early pink sunlight was drenching the walls and she shuddered. Squeezing herself into the smallest corner of the room, she drew her knees to her chest.

  She had been cleansed by the fresh start she had attempted to make with the hamam and Safira, but in the aftermath, she felt tarnished. She wondered at how Armand might ever be satisfied. His lust too was insatiable. She didn’t know if it was the effect of the drugs, or the chains of depravity from which she was still unable to break free. How were they able to? These people were without conscience. They had no time for remorse, or guilt, and she envied them wholeheartedly. She stayed within the apartment for days, twisting behind her makeshift curtains. She never saw Safira again. For her, the episode had been a brief experience to satisfy her own curiosity. Safira infuriated Maia; her sly, knowing smile, her contempt, her strange satisfaction and ability to leave Maia behind.

  She broke down, succumbing to her silent howls. Safira mocked her, the paintings mocked her. In trepidation she covered her canvases, fearful to see what horrors she had produced, terrified to see the person she had become.

  The indolent evenings were a void, a time where nothing was ever remembered, and as they stretched ahead of her, she laid down her tools once more, and succumbed to oblivion.

  Chapter 14

  When Maia sat on the roof she found it was becoming less scorching and unbearable, the luminous colours were fading. As darkness finally began to fall, curiosity took her in its firm grip and she went down into the city streets.

  Maia went deep into the putrid souk, where the tiny food stalls sold proudly and metal workshops stretched back into dark recesses. Monkeys on chains gibbered triumphantly, and she passed a stall where old men sat stuffing mattresses. The multiple hands of Fatima were being sold everywhere. She remembered purchasing these, and, in a vain attempt to protect herself, placed them on her walls. To protect her from what, at the time she didn’t know. Now she knew who, rather than what it was that she had so feared. Her fears had become manifested in people, in Armand, the Historian, Mahmoud, and in her insatiable cravings.

  Although she had been seeking solitude, she knew that the Grand Tazi had again been filling up with tourists who came for a brief respite before the winter in their own countries. A wonderful relief from the long days of loneliness. As she prepared herself, she looked forward to the new characters that she might meet. She never blamed Mahmoud and the Historian. Maia had come to understand that betrayal was Armand’s nature.

  Mahmoud and Tariq greeted her as an old friend, which greatly amused her. She was trying to learn to take life as lightly as they did. Maia surprised herself with her resilience. She now yearned for the company of these desperate lowlifes as they so gladly presented themselves as the evening’s entertainment. Maia relished in the distractions they offered.

  That evening, as Maia observed the clientele, Mahmoud was beaming at her, and waving some sort of stew under her nose.

  “No, thank you” she replied flatly.

  “We shall have to fatten you up!”

  “No, thank you Mahmoud. I am not too hungry.”

  “You know Maia; it is not pleasant to reject a gift here?” smiled Mahmoud, his mouth parting in a wide and unpleasant slit. “We really shall have to fatten you up, increase that small appetite you have. Eat my food!” Mahmoud shouted, rather more genially. He stood over her, the expansive, welcoming villain of his own show.

  She smiled dutifully. “I am afraid my stomach is very weak. Have you seen the Historian?”

  “No, I am afraid he is still on business, my dear. I think you are missing our friend. That spider! He is all day long weaving his webs.” He shook his head, as if to kindly admonish the Historian. “Are you lonely? We can always fix that!”

  “Not really. I was just wondering. I have plenty to be getting on with.” She explained, but Mahmoud’s attention was elsewhere.

  He was watching Konstantin with a benign smile. Konstantin was sitting across the courtyard, flirting with a new group of men. With affection, Maia watched his awkward movements. He was standing, discomfited in the centre of a crowd of predatory men. Konstantin possessed a certain innocence, a naivety perhaps, which she always found endearing. He was unpleasantly drunk, slurring his words together and muttering unintelligibly. Maia noticed that red thread veins had begun to litter Konstantin’s perfectly marble white complexion, in the mere course of a summer.

  “A man’s capacity for delusion is unlimited.” Mahmoud whispered. As they watched, a much younger Arab massaged Konstantin’s shoulder rather obviously. “Konstantin is making many mistakes here. You see the young men he is talking to? They do not like men. Not really. They want his money, perhaps a European visa. He falls in love again and again, but not one of these men will ever leave their families for another man. You ask me. I know.”

  Konstantin saw her looking and waved for her to come over. He kissed her three times on each cheek.

  “You looked busy, so I didn’t head straight over.”

  “I am never too busy for you! Meet Paola.”

  The woman was sitting at his table, downing one vodka after the other, surrounded by people at the table, loudly cheering her on. She held out her hand to Maia. “Paulo Straneo.”

  The woman was more than overweight, with short, pudgy limbs and beady black eyes, which constantly darted around the room. Her face was squashed up like a toad, and her hair was black and frizzy, with dreadful breath as she leaned towards Maia.

  “Straneo. That means ‘strange’ in Italian?”

  “How perceptive of you,” said a sarcastic voice. A few feet away, Armand was fingering his wine glass. Another man was standing next to him, a man with a sneer upon his face.

  “This is Florian,” said Konstantin, “he is German!”

  “No, no.” Florian was evidently affronted. “I am Dutch!”

  “Just look at all those girls.” Paola, leaned towards Maia in what she obviously believed might be a shared intimacy, as she gestured to a group of women by the pool. Maia recoiled at the woman’s dreadfully foul smelling breath. “Fallen women.”

  “Fallen from where, exactly?”

  “They’re not to be trusted, you know. They’re all prostitutes.”

  “And how did you come to that conclusion?”

  “Just look at them.”

  “Look at yourself,” Maia said with contempt. She tried to walk away, but Konstantin gently held her arm. Maia knew she had made an enemy but she was past caring. She found Paola revolting. But she also pitied her.
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  The place was more quiet than usual, and as Maia wondered vaguely if this was just the last flux before desertion, Konstantin placed his hand clumsily upon Florian’s shoulder. He was wearing a velvet jacket, which in this weather was still too warm. Maia thought he looked utterly ridiculous.

  “Florian is having a party soon, aren’t you?” said Konstantin. “It is at his house. In the Palmeraie.”

  Maia knew that the Palmeraie was the supposedly smarter quarter of Marrakech. She had only visited the area once, but had found that she had a distinct preference for the high walls of the medina, with their blank façades and hidden secrets to the modern mansions of the Palmeraie set in open gardens and wide set drives.

  “Florian is holding this party in honour of an American photographer, Blake Cram.”

  This grabbed Maia’s attention. “How interesting. I’m an artist.”

  “Oh really? What do you paint?” said Florian.

  “Women. How men look at us, and watch us. I like the way they are in daily life. I am interested in humanising them.”

  “You like women?”

  “I find their demeanour, and their bodies deserve to be immortalised.”

  “I tell you! You try to portray that old Madonna-Whore complex.” He was suddenly very excited. His cheeks were flushed, and when she looked more closely, Maia thought they looked a little too flushed.

  “Well you must have been unlucky. You can come to my party. We will let her, won’t we Konstantin? She sounds interesting.”

  “Yes, she is one of us,” said Konstantin.

  Maia’s opinion of Konstantin was waning. With his calculated smile he possessed that incredible ability of being all things to all people.

  “I want to die violently instead of simply fading out,” said Florian dramatically. “We’ve just been here, dissipating all summer.”

  Maia could only wonder how she hadn’t noticed him before. “So only people you consider interesting will be your guests?”