‘What are they saying?’ I asked Idir. He waved away my question, keeping his attention riveted on the screen. This was worrying. So was the even more hardened look of Maika and her husband. Titrit, meanwhile, was betraying all emotions, appearing both shocked and distressed. When she actually put her hands over Naima’s ears, so she could hear nothing more of the broadcast, I sensed trouble.
The news item ended. There was an immediate heated exchange between Immeldine and Idir. When Titrit tried to say something she was shouted down by both her husband and her mother. Naima started crying. I began to panic.
‘Please tell me what they said,’ I asked Idir.
Out of nowhere Immeldine barked something so fierce at me that Naima hid herself behind her mother.
Then Idir said to me:
‘You go. We bring the food to you.’
‘If I could just explain—’
‘Go!’
I wrapped my face in the burqa and crossed the few steps back to my tent. Once inside, my fear turned into a crazed panic attack, in which I found myself pacing manically around the tiny space, all sorts of extreme scenarios taking over, including Idir and Immeldine deciding that they had to turn me over to the police, and me being thrown into a squalid cell in which I would be repeatedly abused by the guards, and Inspector Moufad from Essaouira conducting an all-night interrogation designed to break me, and me signing a confession that yes, I had killed Paul in a fit of rage on the beach and dumped his body in the Atlantic, and yes, I had agreed to go on an all-night joyride with those two monsters, and when the little shit got a bit fresh with me I lashed out and . . .
Stop this insanity, I hissed at myself. But my brain was on overload. In moments of lucidity I told myself that all the repressed mental trauma of the rape was now finally coming to the surface. But those nanoseconds of clarity were soon subsumed by a full-scale sobbing. All those terrible childhood moments of our family being evicted from a series of houses and apartments came flooding back, with the realisation: It’s happening again. I am being forced out from a place of safety; a family who have given me more love and acceptance and sense of shelter than I’ve ever had. Now this new family is about to reject me, turning me out into a malevolent world that will engulf me as soon as I am beyond this little oasis.
My sobs became so convulsive, so out of control, that I felt as if I might become unhinged. My pacing was so frantic that I was literally crashing into corners of the tent, endangering its stability. Suddenly Maika and Titrit rushed in. Titrit had me in her arms in a moment, firmly settling me down on the cot, cradling me, whispering consoling words that had no meaning for me except that they were soothing. She held me as I buried my head in her shoulder, and Maika kept her distance as the grief came cascading forth. Perhaps she knew – given what I had been put through – that this was long overdue. Perhaps she also understood my fear of the world beyond. Whatever the reason she let me cry myself into exhaustion. When I briefly subsided she stepped in, helped Titrit to undress me and get me into the white nightshirt I’d been sleeping in. Laying me down on the cot she rubbed a different kind of balm (it smelled of patchouli and chamomile) across my forehead and into my temples, then massaged the same substance deep into my feet before sitting me up and making me drink an extra-large dosage of the nightly tisane.
Just before surrendering I grasped Maika and Titrit’s hands and said one word:
‘Shukran.’
When I came to I glanced at my watch and was shocked to discover it was almost eleven a.m. Had I really been out for over thirteen hours? When I got off the cot and changed out of the nightshirt and back into the djellaba, I noticed a certain physical stability that had been absent for a long time. Then I started wondering again what would happen if Idir turned me over to the cops and the shakiness began to reassert itself. But I managed to get dressed, wrap the burqa around my face and make it to the toilet without succumbing to another panic attack.
When I returned to my tent I found Idir standing outside.
‘I would like to speak to you,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ I replied, motioning that we should go inside. He shook his head vehemently. I instantly regretted my faux pas – there was no way he would enter a tent alone with a woman who wasn’t his wife, mother or daughter. He pointed to the tent where we ate dinner. I followed him over, removing my burqa once inside. We had company, as Titrit was chopping vegetables in preparation for lunch. She didn’t look up once at me. Idir bent down in front of a little gas stove and lit it, boiling a small kettle of water, opening a tin and throwing a large handful of mint into a pot, filling it with hot water, waiting several minutes for it to steep. Nothing was said during the tea making. Pouring out two glasses he handed one to me and nodded gravely as I thanked him. He motioned for me to sit down on one of the two stools. Then, in his hesitant French, he said:
‘I know what happened to you. I am very sorry for that and I do not want to judge you. But . . . the police are looking for you. If they find you here, they will accuse us of hiding you. This will be bad for us. So you have to leave.’
I acknowledged his decision with a nod of my head. He continued:
‘I know all your money and papers were stolen.’
I said:
‘I don’t know what I should do next. I was so unwell after the attack – and for the rest of my life I will never forget the kindness you and your family have shown me. But I haven’t really thought about how to proceed.’
He scrunched up his lips.
‘The man who drives the rugs and things that the women make . . . he should be here late this afternoon. I will ask him to take you with him. He will be going to Marrakesh, but usually makes many stops along the way.’
‘You have to tell him I am wanted by the police.’
‘Of course I will tell him that. He is my friend. Go back to your tent now. Think how you will get money and papers – because you will need both. I will get my wife to fetch you when the driver arrives. His name is Aatif.’
With a final nod he left the tent.
A few minutes later, back in the tiny space I was going to be vacating in just a few hours, I tried thinking through a solution to my immense problem. I had no easy answers. The accountant in me reasserted herself for an hour or so, weighing up all the checks and balances available to me. They were virtually non-existent. Say I found a phone and called Morton in the US, and told him he needed to wire money to me. Say that my disappearance had been picked up by international news services, and was also being monitored on the Internet – no doubt a small item, but a husband and wife separately missing in a North African country, with overtones of foul play, would cause interest. Even if Morton wired the funds to a bank or some outpost of Thomas Cook, I would have to show ID to collect them. I had no ID. Then there was the little problem of the previous night’s television news bulletin. It is a strange experience, watching a missing person’s report in which you are not just the individual the police are trying to track down, but also the chief suspect. Remembering how Moufad had jabbed that photograph of me I was in no doubt that if I simply turned myself in I would be burying myself alive.
So wiring money from overseas was out of the question, especially as the Moroccan version of the FBI and Interpol were probably now monitoring any potential wire transfers in my name. As they had shown my mugshot last night on television there was a good chance that it was going to be a regular feature of news broadcasts until I was apprehended. Would the Moroccan police also put a Wanted Persons poster up in post offices and banks and, indeed, anywhere foreigners could collect money? Were they sophisticated enough in their surveillance techniques to have found out my email address and flagged any messages sent or received from it? When Paul first proposed this trip I had quietly googled ‘Moroccan terrorism’ just to reassure myself that the security situation was as good as he said. Bar the terrible bombing of a Marrakesh tourist café in 2005, and certain warnings about travel in the extreme south, all th
e reports I read noted that the country was stable. But like every other place on which the spectre of terrorism had fallen, Morocco had very sophisticated intelligence and anti-terrorism apparatus at work – which surely meant the monitoring of telecommunications and the Internet. The fact that a national manhunt was under way for me . . . I was absolutely convinced that the moment I sent or received an email, alarm bells would go off and the geographic location from which it was dispatched or read would be flagged. Yes, I could borrow somebody’s cellphone to call the States, but if I couldn’t physically collect the money without photo ID, why would I risk a call? Especially as the Moroccan Sûreté and the US Embassy here had undoubtedly alerted the NSA and the Feds to my disappearance, and they too were monitoring calls to my office, my home, my professional colleagues.
As I pondered the lack of options open to me I kept twisting the two rings on my left ring finger. Which is when the penny dropped. When Paul proposed to me three years ago – it was during a romantic weekend in Manhattan – he took me to Tiffany’s to choose an engagement ring and wedding band. He’d just sold a few lithographs and insisted that I choose a very beautiful single diamond ring and white gold wedding band which together cost $17,000. When I worried out loud that this was far too much money to be spending on rings he made an amused comment to the very gracious, very formal saleswoman to the effect that ‘my wife-to-be understands the bottom line far better than I do’. I could see her smiling politely, taking in Paul’s long grey hair and his leather jacket and black jeans, and also telling him the two rings were an elegant choice, and him slapping down his credit card, and me thinking how wonderfully romantic and impetuous my man was, and how I hoped he’d have the funds to clear the bill next month (he didn’t).
But now . . . now I had on my left hand one negotiable piece of currency. Surely, if this driver was heading to Marrakesh, there were several serious jewellers there who would be willing to buy my rings. I wouldn’t raise anything close to their original value, but I would, at the very least, come out with a decent sum. Perhaps I could then find another driver to get me up to Casablanca. I would barge in on Ben Hassan. I would wave the money in his corrupt face and get him to make me one of his false passports. Then I would find yet another driver to take me to Tangier and the boat to Spain. Once I was on the other side of the water – and out of the shadow of the Moroccan Sûreté – I could call Morton and a lawyer and see about persuading the US Embassy in Madrid to issue a new passport to get me home.
So there it was. A plan, of sorts. Getting from here to Marrakesh might not be the simplest of journeys, but I didn’t want to consider any of that until I had met the driver, sized him up, and found out his price. I also figured that, if I had plenty of cash in hand, Ben Hassan would provide me with a passport on the spot, and might even get Omar to get me to the ferry up north. With Ben Hassan money always seemed to talk.
But first . . .
There was a terrible moment when Titrit and Naima paid a visit, bringing me an early lunch of pitta and couscous. Naima ran to me, threw her arms around my legs and started to sob, putting together three of the English words I’d taught her:
‘You no go.’
When I crouched down beside her she buried her head in my shoulder, weeping. I looked up at one point and saw Titrit also in tears. I held Naima for several moments before loosening myself from her embrace. Keeping my arms around her I said:
‘I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you. But I must go home.’
I touched my head and my heart.
‘You will always be here and here.’
Naima smiled a sad smile as she too touched her head and heart.
‘Here and here,’ she repeated, pronouncing each word beautifully. Now I felt tears. I reached beneath my djellaba and unfastened the silver chain around my neck. Bringing it out I showed Naima the sterling-silver horseshoe that had been a gift from my great friend Ruth on a weekend visit to Brooklyn just after Paul and I had decided to try for a child. When I announced this to Ruth she couldn’t have been more thrilled, and returned that evening with this small, elegant good-luck charm. No charm could have much luck against an operation guaranteed to render pregnancy impossible. But maybe, just maybe, it had brought me the good fortune to survive my ordeal in the desert and land me here.
I put the chain around Naima’s neck, explaining that my best friend had given it to me. And as we were now best friends – I signalled this by pointing to the two of us and then touching my heart – I wanted her to have it. Naima had the horseshoe in her little fingers, looking at it with wonderment. When her grandmother entered the tent a few moments later, holding my clothes in her hands, Naima ran over to her and proudly showed off her gift. Maika smiled gravely at her granddaughter. Approaching me, she handed me my freshly laundered pants and underwear. She also brought a fresh djellaba and a burqa, indicating that I was to keep them – and, through more gestures, also letting it be known that I might need them en route to Marrakesh. Then she did something completely uncharacteristic. Out of nowhere she embraced me. Taking me by both shoulders, she touched one of her leathery hands to my face and said:
‘Allah ybarek feek wal ’ayyam al-kadima.’
It was a phrase I had heard regularly in Morocco. Here it was a benediction, a maternal prayer: May Allah bestow his blessings on you in the days to come.
Outside I heard the sound of a vehicle pulling up into the oasis. We all stiffened as the engine idled, then cut out. My driver had arrived.
Twenty-three
HIS NAME WAS Aatif. At first sight he did not inspire confidence. A short man with a small but pronounced paunch, thinning hair, a handful of brown teeth left in his mouth, world-weary eyes. I judged him to be around my age, but the victim of a hard-scrabble life. His vehicle was a Citroën four-by-four, at least fifteen years old, once white but now scuffed and dented, with two front seats and a reasonable cargo area in the back. It looked as though it was being run into the ground. What struck me immediately about Aatif was his immense shyness. Unlike Immeldine he wasn’t taciturn or distanced. Nor did he exude the sort of detached authority that Idir displayed. Rather he seemed almost ill at ease around others. An innocent. And an unsure, timid one at that.
There was a rather strange, awkward moment when Idir called me over. I briefly lifted the burqa and could see Aatif flinch. Was this due to the fact that he wasn’t expecting a Western woman (though surely Idir had explained that I was American), or owing to the still-battered nature of my face? I couldn’t tell. Without thinking I extended my hand in greeting. He looked horrified, as if I had exposed a breast to him. When he took my hand in return his was cold and clammy.
One positive detail: Aatif spoke French. A somewhat simple French like my own, but with more fluency than Idir. When we started to talk it was clear that we could make ourselves understand each other.
Idir explained that he had informed Aatif about the circumstances that landed me in the oasis. Just as he also understood that I had been robbed of everything; that I had no papers or money; that I would settle up with him when we reached Marrakesh.
‘Do you understand that the police are looking for me?’ I asked him.
He nodded.
‘Does this worry you?’
He shrugged.
‘As long as you are willing to take the risk. I don’t want to put you in any jeopardy.’
Another shrug. Then he said:
‘Two thousand dirhams to take you to Marrakesh. D’accord?’
It seemed a very reasonable price, considering the potential hazard for him.
‘That’s fine – but I am going to need to sell some jewellery in Marrakesh to be able to pay you. I promise that I will pay you.’
A shrug, then:
‘D’accord.’
‘How long do you think it will take to get to Marrakesh?’
He thought about this for a moment.
‘Three days.’
‘Three days! But it’s only
a few hours by car from Ouarzazate, and Ouarzazate is perhaps seven from here.’
‘I have many goods to pick up before I go to the souk in Marrakesh and deliver them to the merchant who will buy them. Many stops to make, many people dependent on me. Like your friends here.’
‘But . . . if we are going to be three days on the road, where will we sleep? I have no money for hotels or food.’
‘I have no money for hotels either. I have two bed rolls in the back. We will sleep by the car at night.’
I didn’t like the sound of this at all. I gave Idir a telling look, asking with my eyes if I could trust this guy. Idir gave me a quick nod. Aatif noticed this visual exchange. Looking half-away from me he said:
‘You will be safe.’
‘All right.’
With that Idir and Immeldine spent the next ten minutes filling up around a tenth of the Citroën’s cargo area with rugs, lace napkins, lace doilies, skullcaps. I could see Idir negotiating with Aatif, clearly hopeful that he could return next month with a good sum for them. From the way he was indicating his pockets and the sparse garden that was tended beneath one of the trees, I sensed that money here was urgently needed. How I wished I could reach into my pocket and hand them 5,000 dirhams right now.
‘When I get to Marrakesh and sell my ring,’ I told Idir, holding up my hand, ‘I will ask Aatif to bring some money back for you.’
Immediately Idir waved his hands.
‘We took you in because you were in need,’ he said. ‘There is nothing to repay.’
‘I cannot begin to thank you . . .’
Again Idir waved his hands, but then thought about it for a moment and made the smallest of bows in my direction. Naima was standing near him. He touched the horseshoe pendant which she was now proudly wearing around her neck and bowed again towards me.
Aatif closed the cargo door of his vehicle. It was time. Titrit started to weep again and held me for several moments. Maika also seemed to be fighting tears, but was absolutely determined not to cry. As she squeezed my shoulder I noticed she had made a fist with her right hand and was, I sensed, demonstrably making it clear that she approved of the way I’d hit back at the men who’d attacked me. Naima glanced up at her father for approval before coming over to me. I knelt down. She kissed me with great delicacy on both cheeks. Intriguingly there were no tears, none of the sense of impending loss that we had shared with the other women in the tent that had been my refuge. Here, in front of her father and grandfather and a visiting man, she was conscious that she needed to act with restraint. After a moment she went running back to her father, looking up at him for approval – which he gave with one of his characteristic nods.
The Heat of Betrayal Page 26
