‘That’s largely down to you. I heard all about the secret vasectomy.’
‘Paul told you that?’
‘Hardly. It was Ben Hassan.’
‘That bastard. And let me guess – he also called you last night or this morning, telling you I was on my way to Ouarzazate.’
‘Indeed he did. I’m sure he promised that he wouldn’t phone me. Just as I’m certain you regret letting him in on that little betrayal that Paul perpetrated on you. Again I’m amazed by how a bright woman like you—’
‘Yes, I was naive. Naive because I was also so hopeful. Never a good combination, apparently. Just as I now know that Ben Hassan has deceived Paul. Lending him money on the basis of giving it to your daughter, and then not passing it on to her. Isn’t that known as embezzlement?’
‘That’s a matter of conjecture. Did you read the loan agreement? Did Paul? I doubt it. Do you know what I think – having heard about Ben Hassan’s newest game? Even though this is all speculation, I bet that after Samira gave birth to my grandson Ben Hassan got in touch with Paul, telling him that he was a grandfather and that Samira desperately needed his help. He probably played up the fact that, because he never answered any of her letters or emails over the years, Samira had written him off as a terrible man, a non-existent father. But Ben Hassan told Paul that, if he could find her the money needed for her apartment, he would be able to re-establish his relationship with her and play a role in his grandson’s life – and that he would also right the wrong that he perpetrated on Ben Hassan all those years ago. Of course Ben Hassan being Ben Hassan he probably sent that email as a way of seeing if he could play on Paul’s guilt after all these years. Knowing my fat “friend” as I do I’m certain he felt the account wouldn’t be closed until he’d found a way of ensnaring Paul. What he couldn’t have known – until you told him last night – was that his email arrived right after Paul promised you a baby and had himself fixed in secret – an act that Paul knew, when revealed, would destroy everything between you. Ben Hassan’s email allowed Paul to think that here was his chance to right past wrongs, here was a chance to reconnect with the only child he would now ever have.
‘So maybe that’s why Paul showed up on Samira’s doorstep two days ago, expecting her to greet him as the man who’d finally redeemed himself in her eyes. Instead she rebuffed him. Which had him running back to Ben Hassan – who comforted him and put it into his head that maybe if he headed south to Ouarzazate, I would be able to help him find a way back to Samira.’
‘Ben Hassan did all this to break him. He got your father, your brothers. Now Paul. He was the last member of the quartet who cost him his career. And he has certainly avenged himself.’
‘But he is still an obese man with a sad life. And someone who was denied his life’s dream – to become a great painter. How does revenge fix that?’
I drained my glass. Faiza glanced at her watch.
‘I really don’t feel like talking much more,’ she said. ‘And I have a class to teach – not that I want to do that either. Still, it’s my work. And my work, as minor and inconsequential as it is, tucked away in the mouth of the Sahara, does give some form and shape to the day. So I’d like you to leave now.’
‘I just need to know one last thing . . .’
‘Which is what?’
‘Did Paul give you any indication that he was suicidal?’
‘Or would follow my advice and kill himself? Put it this way – I told him that he had ruined my life, that he had ruined his daughter’s life, that he had ruined Ben Hassan’s life. Then I told that I knew all about how he tricked you into believing he wanted a child with you. That really sent him into a spin.’
‘And he said what?’
‘“I’ve fucked everything up.” Then I said he had to leave. He started to cry, begging for my forgiveness. I told him I was kicking him out, just as he’d kicked me out of his life years ago.’
‘So you had your revenge too. Has it changed anything?’
She lit another cigarette.
‘It’s changed nothing. Nothing at all.’
She walked to the front door and opened it.
‘Leave,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry you’re so bitter.’
‘And you’re not?’
I left.
Outside I found myself frantically searching for a taxi, the mid-afternoon heat now even more frightening in its intensity. My brain was spinning like the wheels on a slot machine – and turning up zip in the way of solutions. Except the absolute need to find Paul immediately – and to alleviate at least one of his fears by telling him he owed Ben Hassan nothing.
Had he kept a copy of the loan agreement? Was there a lawyer in Casa I could hire to break the contract and sue Ben Hassan for fraud, while also pursuing the authorities to prosecute him for embezzlement?
Absurd thoughts. If, as Faiza said, Ben Hassan really had all those high-up connections, I knew the best I could hope for was that, once Paul was back home, he never came near us.
A taxi passed by and halted when the driver saw my frantic waving. I was back at the hotel in five minutes, scanning every passing corner along the way for a sighting of Paul. When I walked in Yasmina stared at me wide-eyed.
‘Why aren’t you with Monsieur Paul?’
‘Paul! You found him?’
‘He came back to the hotel.’
‘He what?’
‘He came back. Maybe three or four minutes ago. Left this here for you.’
She handed me an envelope with the letter R in his characteristic calligraphy.
‘Surely you saw him as you were pulling up in the taxi.’
‘If he’d been there I would have seen him.’
‘But he just wandered out a minute ago. Maybe even less than that. Heading to the bus station. With no bags, but saying he was going south. You can’t have missed him.’
‘But I did.’ I was frantic now. ‘Was he on foot?’
She nodded.
I turned around. My taxi had pulled away.
‘How do I get there?’ I cried.
‘It’s a five-minute walk. Head to the main street, turn left, keep going until you see the station. It is opposite the Q8 petrol station. But hurry – the bus he’s taking, I think it leaves very soon.’
Envelope in hand I charged down the maze of alleyways, then bounded along the Avenue Mohamed V, oblivious to the scorching afternoon, the pavements burning through my sandals, certain that up ahead I could see Paul’s six-foot-four frame, his long grey hair bobbing with his bouncing gait. Running faster than I have ever run, my eyes suddenly going foggy, the bus station up ahead, the bus there, me pushing myself against a heat so dense, so viscous, my equilibrium going sideways, but, oh God no . . . there he is getting on the bus, and I’m starting to scream: ‘Wait, wait, wait,’ and no, this cannot be, the door closing and the bus pulling away, and I am seeing people on the street in nearby cafés, hearing me scream, signalling to the driver to stop, and the bus now turning out of the depot and down the main drag of Ouarzazate, and me just reaching the bus station around thirty seconds later, and falling into the dirt, and blacking out for a moment, and people rushing over, and two men helping me to a nearby café table, one of them rushing inside while the other keeps my head between my legs. The second man returned with a sodden cloth that he put around my neck. As he helped me back into an upright position, a flash flood of sweat rolled down my face. I was handed a chilled bottle of water which I drained in moments.
The men kept asking if I was all right, if they could get anyone to help me, why was I running like that?
I still had the envelope in my left hand. I asked for more water and opened the letter. Though my eyes were still having trouble focusing I was able to make out the following lines in Paul’s tortured scrawl:
I have hit the wall. I am heading to the end of the line. Don’t pursue me. Let me do what I have to do.
I am beyond sorry. But forgiveness is not deserved in this
instance. Which is why I am disappearing. Permanently.
You were the love of my life. I only see that now.
Farewell.
P.
I looked up from the letter and into the faces of the men huddled around me, their concern about my mental and physical state evident.
‘Where was that bus heading?’ I asked.
‘Tata.’
‘What’s Tata?’
‘A town six hours south of here.’
I shut my eyes and made an instant decision.
‘What time is the next bus to Tata?’
Eighteen
ONE OF THE men who came to my aid was a taxi driver. He insisted on bringing me back to the hotel and refused my offer of a fare. When I reached the front door, Yasmina came racing out and helped me into the lobby. She found me more water. She sent one of the cleaners for another wet cloth to put around my neck, then told me I should go upstairs and lie down. She would check on the flight to Paris, as there was still time to catch it.
‘He left on the bus to Tata,’ I said. ‘The next bus to Tata leaves in ninety minutes. I’m getting on it.’
‘But Tata is a six-hour journey from here. And it is absolutely in the middle of nowhere.’
‘He’s threatening to kill himself,’ I said, brandishing the letter. ‘If I get there tonight there is a good chance I can find him before—’
‘Madame, one simple call from me to the gendarmes will see the bus stopped somewhere between here and Tata, and your husband taken into protective custody.’
What she said made sense. But I was operating according to a different sort of logic, in which I had convinced myself that if he fell into the hands of the authorities Ben Hassan was certain to be contacted. Given that he was still set on revenge who’s to know what horror he would instruct them to concoct for Paul. Two days in a Moroccan jail would break him. No. Two hours would be enough to upend what little equilibrium he had left. Especially given Ben Hassan’s ability to pull all sorts of evil strings. The stories about Faiza’s father and brothers were still fresh in my mind. I could easily see Paul being ‘suicided’ while in protective custody – and the officials (along with everyone else, from Ben Hassan to Samira to Faiza to the very kind woman behind this hotel desk) all corroborating the fact that he was mentally troubled in the days leading up to his death by hanging in his padded cell; a suicide that Ben Hassan could easily arrange for 5,000 dirhams tops.
‘I’m getting on that bus,’ I told Yasmina. ‘Because it’s me and me alone who can get him out of trouble.’
‘I beg you—’
‘No discussion! None!’
I could see Yasmina recoil at the way I snapped at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.
She put a restraining hand on my arm.
‘I implore you. Go to your room, have a shower, lie down, let me call the gendarmes.’
‘My decision is made. And I am going to say this – if, when I get to Tata, I find that he has been taken off the bus by the police . . .’
‘You have my word. I will not make that call. But as you have a little time I ask that you go upstairs and stand under the shower and drink at least another litre of water. You are in danger of dehydrating.’
I did as ordered, asking her to have a taxi here in just under an hour.
After my shower I got dressed again, constantly pushing out of my head any conflicting thoughts about the wisdom of chasing Paul to Tata. There is no choice, I told myself. I told Paul he was better off dead. He may have betrayed me, but my initial fury set this entire nightmare in motion. And now he seems determined to kill himself. I know I am beyond panicked, beyond confused. But the only end to this is to get to him before he falls off the edge.
Downstairs I offered Yasmina money for letting me stay in the room long after the check-out hour. She refused.
‘You have been too kind to me,’ I said.
‘I wish I could convince you to stay.’
‘I have to see this through.’
Her reply was a look that said: No, you don’t . . . and you know that. Then she handed me the hotel card with her cellphone number on the back of it.
‘If I can help you in any way, you know where to find me.’
Half an hour later I was on the bus heading south. It looked like a relic of the 1980s, with half-stripped paintwork, chewed-up seats, grimy windows, no air conditioning, no ventilation.
Thankfully there were only ten of us boarding at Ouarzazate, which meant that I had two seats to myself all the way. The other passengers were four elderly women in full burqas, three men of equally advanced years, a young mother with two babies, and a shy adolescent girl who glanced back at me on several occasions, clearly curious as to why I was on this bus. I managed to smile back, but drifted into my preoccupied reverie. Outside, the terrain was part oasis – trees, patches of arable land – and part encroaching sand. There was the occasional change in the topography – a vista in which stern mountains could be seen on the horizon; a densely populated village, its souk in full late-afternoon swing; the tents of Bedouin families pitched alongside the road; the sense that, with every kilometre, we were travelling deeper into a void. Didn’t I read online yesterday that, in Berber Arabic, Ouarzazate means ‘without noise, without confusion’? Gazing out at the darkening landscape – the sand turning copperish in the declining sun – I could understand just why, when compared to the noisy jumble that was other Moroccan cities, Ouarzazate wasn’t simply the doorway to the desert, but also to the immense silence into which I was now venturing. When you stared at the ever-expanding Sahara, you could understand why it was something akin to a blank canvas, divorced from the disarray and chaos of life beyond. But I began to wonder if that too was an illusion. You look at a sea of empty sand, two Bedouin parents crossing this terrain with their children, and marvel at the timeless simplicity of it all. The truth is more complex: the need to find water, to find money for food and other essentials. The daily ordeal of survival in a harsh, unforgiving universe.
Without noise . . . without confusion.
Life is noise, confusion. We can run to the ends of the earth, and it will still impinge on us. Because the demons within us never vanish – even in a landscape as hushed as the Sahara.
The bus stopped in a tiny village next to a small stream. I bought a cup of mint tea from a sad-faced man. There was a toilet in a nearby shed: a hole in the ground over which had been constructed a wooden box with a makeshift seat. The smell was overpowering. I emerged, choking, desperate for fresh air. But even at sunset, the heat stifled everything.
I boarded the bus again. I attempted to nap. But the bus’s lack of suspension and my own preoccupations hindered sleep. Tata couldn’t be that big a place. A handful of hotels at best. I’d stop in each one until I found Paul. I’d soothe and comfort him. Then I’d call Yasmina in Ouarzazate and get her to book us tickets on the next flight to Paris. I’d get us back to her hotel by midday tomorrow. I’d . . .
Make plans, as usual. In the hope of imposing reason on someone for whom reason was more than a stretch. Faiza – as angry and vindictive as she was – did get one thing right: Paul brought chaos into everybody’s life. But there was a difference between the Paul I met three years ago – who feigned obliviousness to the mess he engendered – and the man who left me what was clearly a suicide note. He could no longer run from himself. But he could run into the Sahara.
The hours on the bus went by slowly, the vanished sun lowering the temperature somewhat, but not acting as a palliative against the grubbiness of the journey. I nodded off for a spell, waking with a jolt when the bus screeched to a halt, the horn was honked, and the driver shouted:
‘Tata.’
We were in a parking area outside a walled town. I had been sleeping against my backpack. Getting off the bus I was immediately confronted by two young men – both in their early twenties, both trying to grow beards with not much luck, both wearing baseball caps, both looking me over.
‘Hello, pretty lady,’ one of them said in French.
‘You need some help to guide you around?’ the second one asked.
I held up the photo page of Paul’s passport.
‘I’m looking for this man – my husband.’
‘I know where he is,’ the first guy said.
‘You do?’ I asked. ‘Honestly?’
‘You come with us, we show you . . .’ the second one said, but he was interrupted by the bus driver, who began to shout at them in Arabic, telling them several times to ‘imshi’. These two operators were not intimidated, however, and began to sass him back, until another man – in his late fifties, wearing a dark suit – also weighed in on the argument. The two guys were clearly enjoying the confrontation. The older was being bold and arrogant, eyeing me up and down, making flip comments (‘Don’t you want a date with me?’ . . . ‘I love American women’ . . . ‘You don’t need your husband, you need a younger man’) amidst this heated interchange with my two protectors. Eventually the older man, who was tall and heavily lined, a cigarette clutched between his teeth, ash dropping on his brown suit jacket, mentioned the word ‘police’ and the two operators backed off, but not before Mr Arrogant winked at me and said: ‘Maybe some other time.’
Once they were gone the older man handed me a card and explained in French that he worked for a small hotel within the walls, and he could offer me a very clean, safe room for 300 dirhams . . . discounted from the usual 500. If I was hungry he could persuade the cook to stay on and make dinner for me. I pulled out Paul’s passport and showed him the photograph, asking if he knew where I might find my husband.
‘When did he arrive?’
‘On the bus before mine.’
‘That’s impossible.’
‘Why? I saw him leave on the earlier bus.’
‘I met that bus – as I meet all buses here. And there was only one Westerner on it – a German of around seventy, travelling alone.’
‘Couldn’t he have gotten off when you weren’t looking?’
‘Madame, I promise you, I see everyone who arrives by bus in Tata. You can check the other hotels, if you wish.’
The Heat of Betrayal Page 21
