“I think they’re a couple of space cadets, those two. Dressed for a Claude Lelouch movie.”
They parked and walked toward the softly floodlit entrance to the hotel. The tall ochre façade loomed like a fort with embrasured parapets, surrounded by palms, a castle-sized Moorish entrance. Its elegance and remove from the busy souk and the blistered, ravaged, beautiful old town made it seem inauthentic, more like the Alhambra by Disney.
Aegina stopped near the entrance and faced Luc. “Do I look okay?”
Her dark hair, washed and glossy after she’d run olive-oiled fingers through it, was parted in the middle, broke on her shoulders and fell far down her back. Her large eyes and her teeth shone. She wore no bra and the oblique light from the hotel picked out her small breasts pushing against the fabric.
“Aegina, you look incredible.”
“Thank you.” She looked him over, his thin white cheesecloth shirt, Levi’s. “You too.”
“Too bad Dennis and Sophie aren’t here to see us.”
Aegina pinched his waist through his shirt.
We’re going to make love tonight, he thought.
They walked inside.
Rolf and Minka were sitting at a table in the bar. Fingering their drinks, smoking, staring at remote extremities of the room, not talking. Minka saw them first; she smiled and waved. Rolf turned his head, fixed his eyes on Luc and Aegina as they approached and made a remark to Minka. She didn’t seem to hear. She stood up and leaned forward to hug and kiss both as they reached the table.
“So glad you came to have dinner with us!” Minka said.
“You found the shirts, yeah?” Rolf said as they sat down.
“Possibly,” said Aegina. “The man we met, a sort of shirt factory owner, is running up a model to show us tomorrow.”
“What about the price?” asked Rolf.
“He wouldn’t talk price until we see what he’s making.”
“Ja, ja, then he makes the strike. Once you like it, he gets you like this.” Rolf suddenly grabbed air as if catching a fleeing chicken by the neck.
“And then, if you like it, what happens?” asked Minka.
“Well, if we can agree on a price, then we see what he can give us and how long it will take.”
Rolf and Minka told them what they’d found for his boutique in Munich. Leather Berber satchels, Berber slippers, carpets, hookahs, shirts and vests; how much they paid, how it would be shipped back to Germany. At nine, a liveried waiter materialized to tell them that their table in the dining room was ready. They rose and followed him.
The dining room was full of beautiful and tanned Europeans weighted down with Moroccan accessories. They gazed languidly at the new arrivals.
A cadre of waiters pulled out their chairs and seated them.
“We didn’t see your car out there,” said Luc.
As if glad to be asked, Rolf said, “Ja, we rent an auto à louer. Some Peugeot piece of shit. Always I have the Jag serviced when I come to Marrakech. It’s a fucking long drive from Germany. There is a good mechanic here. I give him the car for a few days and he makes a racing tune.”
“Must take a lot of petrol from Germany to here,” said Luc.
“Ja, masses,” said Rolf. “Many thousand of franc, peseta, dirham. Got to make it worthwhile.” He talked about the many trips he’d made through Morocco, to the Rif and the Atlas Mountains, to Al Hoceima on the Mediterranean coast, and how everything was becoming ruined by hippie tourism. “You are coming to the tables after dinner?” he asked Luc.
“Oh!” Minka said with guttural disgust. “He likes the gambling. You will lose all your money!”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Luc.
“Always I have good luck,” said Rolf. “It’s because I am a Syltsman. A man from the island of Sylt.”
“Oh no. Please,” said Minka.
“Ja, ich bin ein Syltsmann.”
Minka said again: “Don’t start with that.”
“You don’t like my beautiful song?” asked Rolf.
“What song?” said Aegina.
“No! Now he will sing it,” said Minka, with real or mock unhappiness.
“Ich bin ein Syltsmann,” said Rolf. “The most successful pop song ever to come from the island of Sylt. You don’t know it?”
Minka tried to clap her hand over Aegina’s mouth. “I don’t think so,” said Aegina, pulling away, laughing.
“It was German second place for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1964. In Sylt I was number one for a year.”
Minka looked at Luc and Aegina, her eyes rolling upward.
Rolf leaned back against the bloodred upholstered banquette. His eyes stared into the distance and he started to sing in a deep, melodic, unabashed voice, “Ich bin ein Syltsmann, ich bin ein Syltsmann, mein Zuhause ist neben dem Meer . . .”
Minka’s head fell against Aegina’s shoulder as if she’d been clubbed, her mouth dropped open. Aegina laughed, watching Rolf sing.
“Mein Vater und sein Vater, und ihre Väter vor ihnen . . .” Rolf’s eyes closed. “Waren Seeleute.”
• • •
Luc was dizzy. They’d drunk too much wine and smoked more dope in the Mamounia’s garden. He lay in bed in the dark, waiting for Aegina to return from the bathroom.
Last night she’d fallen asleep beside him. How far were they going to take this respectful almost-step-sibling business? Was she so relaxed with him because she’d bought completely into that Dennis–Sophie gambit, or was she in love with this Dennis the banjo player? Was she really as comfortable with him as a sister? Wasn’t she attracted to him? She had been once—or maybe not: maybe that was more about what was going on with her that summer than anything to do with him. With anyone else, he’d have made a move already, but now he had an instinct that he should not rush it. This was Aegina—at last—not some fling. He decided he would let happen what would happen, however slowly.
Did people make money playing the banjo?
He must have fallen asleep. She was getting into bed. He felt a T-shirt next to him. He felt her warmth flooding beneath the single sheet that covered them. Aegina didn’t wear scent, but she had a smell—he didn’t know what it was or what it smelled like except that it was hers and he now lived to breathe it. He closed his eyes, angled his head, and inhaled as he had never inhaled before. There was a dampness to the musky warmth that poured off her . . .
• • •
It was light through the louvers when she woke. Now she knew they were going to make love. She wanted to and she knew he did too. She’d fallen asleep the first night, and he’d fallen asleep last night. He was being so sweetly respectful. But he would wake and she would start it.
She could feel she was wet. She slipped out of bed, gliding silently to the door.
In the bathroom, she checked on things—it was approaching but not quite time for her period. No sign, just wet, ready for him. She peed. After she flushed the toilet, she splashed water from the small hand basin between her legs, cleaning and dabbing herself with toilet paper. Then she washed her face and rinsed her mouth.
When she got back to the room, Luc was dressed, standing at the window. The shutters were open and he was looking out into the street.
He turned to her. “Hi,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” said Aegina.
“I’ll go downstairs and get some coffee, and you can take your time. How’s that?”
“Lovely. Thanks.”
Seven
Rachid showed them into a small room at the rear of the long sewing shed. It appeared unused, a formal setting, with cushions on the carpeted floor. A single faded color photograph in a frame hung on one wall: a swirling multitude of bearded men dressed in white robes filling an enormous square.
“Please, sit,” said Rachid, indicating the cushions.
As Luc and Aegina sat down, a girl entered the room carrying a brass tray with a silver teapot and three small glasses. She placed the tray on the floor and left the room. Rachid sat down. “You will take tea?”
“Thank you,” said Luc. He turned and smiled at Aegina.
Rachid poured, raising the teapot dramatically, eighteen inches up and down again, as the trajectory of thin steaming green liquid perfectly filled each small glass. He placed a glass in front of Luc and Aegina and then picked up his own. “Please,” he said. He waited until they drank a sip of the hot, very sweet mint tea before he took a sip himself.
“Please, one moment,” he said. He rose and left the room.
“Better drink it all up,” Luc said to Aegina. “Manners.” He liked the Moroccan mint tea that was served everywhere, but Aegina found it too sweet and undrinkable.
“And then he’ll pour me more,” she said.
Rachid came back into the room. He carried two shirts, one black, one white, on wire hangers. He separated them and laid them on cushions in front of Luc and Aegina and resumed his seat.
“Please. Look,” said Rachid.
Aegina picked up the black one. The collar, hem, and sleeve edges were all minutely blanket-stitched, not bound with trim or appliqué. She looked closely at the embroidery around the neck, at the small buttons sewn down the opening at the chest. She held the shirt up before her. The black cotton was finely woven, light, silky, not quite transparent, and produced a velvetlike sheen where it broke into folds. The dense black-upon-black embroidery stood out like lace over a sheerer fabric.
“It’s beautiful,” Aegina said quietly. She turned big brown eyes on Luc. “Really beautiful. This is it.”
“Do you like the white?” asked Rachid.
Aegina passed the black shirt to Luc and picked up the white one from the cushion in front of her. The cloth was as fine and lightweight as the other. The embroidery did not stand out as visibly as on the black shirt, but there was more of it. It imbued the shirt with a suggestion of a fine, muted brocade.
“This is exquisite,” said Aegina, again in English. And then in French for Rachid: “These are very fine. Very beautiful.”
He nodded his head. “It is what you are looking for?” he asked.
“Oh yes. But more beautiful than I had imagined.”
“Good.” Rachid smiled, and nodded. “What are you going to do with the shirts? They are not for you only to wear?”
“No, I want to sell them,” said Aegina.
“This is what I thought,” said Rachid. He lifted his glass and took a noisy, slurping sip that cooled the tea between glass and mouth. He put the glass down and licked his lips. “Where do you sell them?”
“In Spain. Perhaps London,” said Aegina. “I know several people with small shops where they sell shirts and clothing for men and women. I will see if they will buy these shirts, or sell them for me. I’m not really sure.”
“And you would like now to buy one hundred shirts?” said Rachid.
“That depends on the price. But these shirts—your shirts—are very beautiful. They are the best I’ve seen. Yes, I would like to buy one hundred if we can agree on a price.”
“And if you sell all the shirts, one hundred shirts,” said Rachid, “what will you do?”
“If I can sell them for a good price—enough, you know, to make it worth the trip here to Marrakech—then I’d like to come back and buy more from you. Perhaps many more.”
Rachid nodded seriously. He lifted his glass and took another noisy sip of tea, licking his lips again. He looked across the room at the photograph on the wall. Then he looked at Aegina.
“For one hundred shirts I will sell to you for”—he lifted a hand and stuck up fingers one by one—“four dirham for each shirt. For one hundred shirts, four hundred dirham.” He gazed at them both.
Aegina looked briefly at Luc, her face void of expression though he could see something like a klaxon going off in her eyes. Then she looked at the shirts, and then at Rachid. “Four dirham for each shirt?” she said.
“Yes,” said Rachid. “Is very good price, I think you know. This price for one time. I would like to help you to make your business to sell my shirts in London. You will be able to sell for much more money, I think.”
“I think so, yes,” Aegina said carefully.
“If you return to Marrakech to buy more shirts”—he waggled his head slightly, once to each side—“I will ask you to pay a little more. Five or six dirham for each shirt. It will depend. But now, one time, you can take one hundred shirts to London for this price and see if you can make business.”
Rachid raised his glass again and slurped noisily.
• • •
They walked away through the unpretty streets of the Moroccan polígono quickly, as if they’d been shoplifting.
“I can’t believe it!” said Aegina. She alternately tugged at Luc’s arm, skipped ahead, went back and pulled him on. “That’s about ten shillings a shirt! And they’re a lot nicer than the shirt I bought. I’m sure I can sell them. And make some money, and then come back and buy a lot more. It’s fantastic! Why is Rachid being so nice? We didn’t even bargain with him.”
“Maybe you should have.”
“I think he went beyond that immediately. Do you remember the prices in the souk? This is really wholesale. He can’t be making much at four dirham per shirt.”
“Well, I’m sure he’s not giving them to you at a loss, but obviously he’s interested in what you’re doing. He’s investing in you.”
“Yes. He is. Why?”
“Because it could open up a whole new market for him. Who knows where this could go? He looks at you and he sees what you’re doing. He’s a good businessman. He believes in you.”
Aegina leapt skyward and whooped. She spun and wrapped her arms around Luc’s neck and pulled herself close into him. She lifted her face and kissed him. Abruptly, she pulled away, grabbed his arm and pulled.
“Let’s go have a wonderful lunch somewhere.”
• • •
The little Renault people.”
Rolf’s monotone rolled out of the lowering windows of a large sleek silver Peugeot that slowed and stopped in the middle of an intersection they were approaching on foot.
“Hi!” Minka waved out the passenger window. Then she jumped out of the car, heedless of the small vans, bicycles, pedestrians in the intersection. “Come and have lunch with us!” cried Minka. “We’re going to have lunch by the sea! In such a beautiful place! You must come with us!”
Luc and Aegina looked at each other through their sunglasses. Aegina grinned. “Somewhere beautiful? Sure!”
Minka clutched their arms and pulled them toward the Peugeot.
Eight
Rolf drove with the accelerator on the floor across the hazy beige plain. Luc sat in the passenger seat trying to ignore Minka’s long legs folded up against the back of his seat as she rocked and laughed with Aegina.
“I thought Marrakech was a long way from the sea,” he said.
“Ja, in a little Renault!” said Rolf. “No, man, we be there in an hour.”
The speedometer needle quivered at 180 kph.
“But back in Marrakech by dinner, right?” said Luc. As the kilometers accrued, he began to feel abducted.
“Yes, but you have to see Essaouira beach,” said Minka. “It’s incredible. You won’t believe it. It goes forever.”
“Not like the little beaches in Mallorca,” said Rolf. “I can’t believe you guys like that place. It’s fucked, no?”
“Depends where you go,” said Luc.
“A guy on a yacht, a real sailor who came across the Atlantic, he was telling me the Azores are cool, man,” said Rolf. “No one goes there, except the Portuguese. And not easy to get to, like Mallorca. You fly halfway to America. Too
far for the package holiday tourist. The Med is fucking finished, man.”
“The coast of Yugoslavia is still completely unspoiled,” said Minka.
“Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia,” said Rolf. “Everyone is going to Yugoslavia now. Or to Turkey, the new Greece. The moment you hear this, it’s already too late. All those places are fucked, man.”
Aegina’s head lay on the seat back close to the fully opened window, the air blasting over her. She turned and said above the wind to the blond Teutonic head rising from the seat in front of her: “Half the tourists in Mallorca now are German.”
“Ja, I know. Fuck all tourists, man, the Germans too,” said Rolf. “They are everywhere now. I hope they don’t come to the Azores. Probably they are going to Yugoslavia now. You will get tired of Mallorca too, man. There are better places.”
“My mother was mallorquina,” said Aegina. “My family was on that island before the Romans got there. Before there were any Germans anywhere.”
“Ja, but you are an English girl. I can hear it. You are not spanisch or mallorkisch. I have a good ear for accents. And it’s better for you this way, so you are not a peasant.”
Abruptly, Aegina let loose a torrent of colloquial mallorquí, some of which Luc understood. As she spoke, Aegina was amazingly transformed into an authentic Mediterranean peasant woman, tossing her head and thrusting her chin toward Rolf.
“Yes, he’s a pig, this Syltsman,” said Minka, seriously.
• • •
It was an hour and a half, almost midafternoon, before they reached the coast. Rolf turned left and drove past the beckoning rampart walls of Essaouira’s ancient medina. Beach and ocean appeared on the right, stretching away to the south for miles. A vast, uncontoured expanse of shimmering heat, lovely as a runway, disappearing into haze. Squat, blockhouse hotels and apartment buildings sat across the road. After five minutes drive along the shore, Rolf slowed the car alongside the low, dust-blown vegetation and swung the Peugeot down a sandy track to a squat concrete building on the sand. A thatch-covered terrace looked out over the beach and the sea. Across a whitewashed wall, large, roughly painted blue letters spelled BONGO BAR.
The Rocks Page 21
