by Harlan Ruud
Looking out the bedroom window into the clear, dark autumn sky, I listen to my father downstairs, clanging about in the kitchen.
Is he cooking something? I wonder.
Soon, I smell bacon frying.
'A father's duty,' I hear my grandfather say, 'is to provide his son with food, shelter, and an education in math, morality, and language. Anything more, or less, cannot be expected.'
'A son's duty,' he explains, 'is to be obedient and respectful. Do as I say, not as I do.'
Such simple definitions, I think: truthful in their essence, to be sure, but hardly considerate, much like the story of Noah and Ham, of all the variables innate in every father, every son – every man.
Suddenly, from downstairs, I hear my father call my name.
I stand, pushing back the chair, and leave the room. When he calls me, I have learned, I do not call in return; I go.
Downstairs in the kitchen, he is seated at the table, eating a sandwich. Behind him, in the shadowed living room, my grandfather is sleeping on the couch, snoring.
'Yes?' I say, looking at my father.
'I fried up some ham,' he replies, his mouth full. 'You want a sandwich?'
'No, thanks,' I answer.
'Suit yourself,' he says, shrugging and, though his mouth is full, taking another bite. His elbows resting on the table, he sits, chewing his food, and looks at me.
It is Baby's last night before leaving Essaouira. At YaYa's request, Maggie and I begrudgingly accompany the two of them for dinner at the restaurant where the four of us first met.
As before, the small, dark restaurant is crowded, noisy, thick with cigarette smoke and incense. We are given the same corner booth.
After eating, we once again remain at our table, talking, drinking red wine. Despite our full stomachs, the four of us are quickly inebriated. At the table next to ours is a rowdy group of Australian men, also drunk.
'How does such a small town get so many tourists?' YaYa remarks, glancing over his shoulder at the table of Australians.
'I guess they're here for the same reason we are,' Maggie offers, lighting yet another cigarette.
'Researching a book?' YaYa asks, smiling. 'I don't think so.'
'You never know,' Maggie replies.
'Escaping their past?' I suggest, winking at her.
'If they're from Australia,' she says, 'we can only hope so. Other than Americans, is there any group of people more obnoxious than Australians? With their peeling, sunburnt skin and vulgar –'
'I don't have a problem with them,' Baby interrupts, taking a sip of her wine.
Maggie looks at her.
It has been this way the entire evening. Maggie says something and Baby immediately disagrees.
'Then perhaps you should emigrate there,' Maggie replies, taking a drag of her cigarette and smiling.
'Maybe I will,' Baby says, apparently taking the suggestion seriously. 'But I have too much happening back home. How I was even able to get away for this trip, I'll never know. God.'
'Your little girlfriend bought your ticket, didn't she?' Maggie asks.
Baby looks at YaYa, not moving her head, then at Maggie.
Watching them, I suddenly feel a sharp pain, as if a knife, cut through my asshole up into my belly. Biting my lip, I close my eyes, and the pain abruptly vanishes.
'I bought it myself,' I hear Baby say sternly.
I open my eyes and look at her. Trembling, I place my hands on my thighs and take a deep, slow breath.
'Oh, I'm sorry,' Maggie replies, feigning embarrassment. 'I thought you said she had bought it for you; my mistake.'
Beneath the table, I bring my hands together. They are cold, damp.
'So,' YaYa suddenly says, 'do you think you'll ever come back to Morocco, Baby?'
She continues to look at Maggie, who returns her gaze, then turns to YaYa and smiles.
'Of course,' she says. 'But, you know, it's hard for me to get away.'
There is something she wants to tell us.
YaYa looks at Maggie, then at me, and says:
'Baby's a counselor; she works with homeless women. Plus, she volunteers twice a week at a suicide hotline. And she's about to make a documentary about – what is it about, again?'
'Prostitutes who were molested as children,' she replies sadly, yet proudly.
'Sounds interesting,' Maggie says, seeming genuinely interested, though I know she is not.
Baby looks at her, as if surprised, then says:
'Well, I hope it will be – if I can ever get the funding for it.'
Maggie shakes her head, frowning sympathetically.
'I got a grant from the NEA,' she explains, 'but it went for rent. Then I threw a big fundraising bash, but that went for rent, too. And lipstick.'
She laughs. It's hard not to like her when she laughs, I think.
'Are you going to be in the film yourself?' Maggie asks.
YaYa and I look at each other.
Behind him, two of the Australians are drinking wine straight from the bottle. One of them misses his mouth and the wine spills across his face, causing the others to erupt in laughter.
'I was thinking about it,' Baby replies, surprising me, 'but a few filmmakers I know said it's not such a good idea. So I doubt if I will. It's hard to be objective when you're both in front and behind of the camera, you know?'
'I can imagine,' Maggie agrees, again sympathetically.
Baby nods her head, drinking her wine. The three of us do the same.
'You know,' Baby then says, 'I was in a porno movie once. Can you believe it?'
'You're kidding!' Maggie exclaims, bumping her leg several times against mine.
Here we go, I think.
'I wish I was,' Baby replies, frowning, 'but I'm not. God, that was such an awful time in my life. But I needed the money, so I did it. You know?'
'I can imagine,' Maggie replies. 'You poor thing. Did you at least get paid well for it?'
YaYa looks at Maggie.
'Well,' Baby replies, appearing as if she about to cry, 'I'd rather not talk about it. It's too –'
She begins to cry. Frowning, Maggie reaches forward and puts her hand on Baby's shoulder. Turning her had and looking at me, she says:
'I can imagine.'
I notice that Baby cries without sound or tears. Eyes closed, she holds her hands to her mouth, silently, softly rocking back and forth in her seat.
Suddenly, inexplicably, I hate her.
When Baby, dabbing her dry eyes with a napkin, excuses herself from the table to use the restroom, I turn in my seat and look at Maggie.
'Go ahead,' I say.
'Go ahead what?'
'Go ahead,' I repeat. 'I can't wait to hear what you have to say this time.'
Adjusting the straps of her long black dress, she looks at me, then at YaYa, and smiles mischievously.
'For your information,' she says, 'I've grown quite fond of Baby.'
'Oh, really?'
'Really.'
'I can tell,' YaYa says, looking at her, 'by your interest in her life and – and how you're able to ask just the right questions and –'
'Well,' she interrupts, 'what good is she for if not her disgusting little stories? They're about as – and oh, and why, after all she's told us, would some porno movie she's supposedly been in make her cry? Please.'
'Everything that bothers you,' YaYa offers, 'bothers you equally?'
'No,' Maggie replies, ''but a gunshot to the left probably wouldn't matter more than a gunshot to the right. And other than a trip to Sunday school, I seriously doubt that there's too much that can make that bitch cry. Please. She didn't even have any tears.'
'Has anyone ever told you,' YaYa says, 'that you're a bitch?'
I look at him. Though he is smiling, he is obviously angry.
'Sweetie,' Maggie replies, either missing or ignoring his anger, 'of course they have. But let me say this in my defense, brother: I have no qualms giving people what they secretly, and som
etimes not-so-secretly, want.'
'What the hell does that mean?' YaYa asks.
'What it means,' Maggie explains, leaning forward, 'is that Baby is a perpetual victim. I've seen her type a thousand times. Being a victim has ennobled her in a way that nothing else ever could. Hell, if it's all too painful to discuss then why does she bring it up? I'll tell you why – because her B-movie mistakes give her a depth, a sense of depth, that she just doesn't have. Suicide hotline? Please. Suffering is what gives her life.'
'Perhaps,' YaYa says, looking at her. 'But –'
He is silent for a moment.
'But I like her,' he continues. 'Kind of.'
'Of course you like her,' Maggie says, laughing loudly. 'You're a goddamned writer; you writers adore fucked-up bitches like her. It's the ones who have their acts together, like me, of course, that bore you. Besides, she's probably a nasty bitch in bed, and a man doesn't have to be a writer to enjoy that. Now does he?'
She giggles, batting her eyelashes at him. He shrugs.
'Besides,' Maggie continues, 'I'm sure you'll write all about her one of these days. Isn't that what you writers do: take the misery of others and turn it into a little morality tale? A little lesson?'
'What's worse,' YaYa asks, 'that or laughing about it? Making light of it?'
'I never laughed about it,' she replies, 'but you did.'
'I did not,' YaYa replies.
'Yes,' Maggie says, 'you did. In fact, you couldn't stop laughing. Remember? When she left to use the washroom the night we met?'
YaYa is silent for a moment, then replies:
'I was laughing at you and what you were saying, not at her.'
'Oh,' Maggie counters facetiously, 'I see.'
Frowning, she takes a sip of her wine and continues:
'Nonetheless, I – yes, I did make light of it. And I don't apologize for that. She makes me – she irritates me. With her tall tales and verbal crotch-baring. It's humiliating. She humiliates herself. And all women, she humiliates us all. Especially black women.'
'I thought you were growing fond of her,' I say.
She looks at me.
'I am,' she says, smiling. 'I can honestly say that I will miss her when she leaves tomorrow.'
'I'm sure you will,' offers YaYa, looking skeptically at Maggie. She winks at him.
We are silent for a moment, looking at one another. Maggie takes a sip of her wine, then lights a cigarette.
'Are there any nightclubs in this wretched town?' she suddenly asks, setting the cigarette on the ashtray's glass lip. 'I feel like dancing.'
'You are dancing,' YaYa says, drinking his wine.
Baby returns from the restroom, smiling, and sits down, putting her purse beside her.
'Sorry, folks,' she says, looking at Maggie, who ignores her.
'She wants to go dancing,' I say to Baby. 'Do you know anywhere we can go dancing? I don't.'
'That's the most I've heard you say all night,' Maggie says, turning toward me.
'I've just been listening,' I explain, 'to all the fascinating conversation.'
'Oh,' she exclaims, 'you can hear what they're saying in the kitchen?'
YaYa frowns.
'Anyway,' Maggie says, looking at Baby, 'do you know anyplace we can dance? Outside of the Medina, in the new part, maybe?'
'No, I don't,' Baby answers, shaking her head.
'We could go to that bar by the beach,' YaYa suggest. 'There's no dance-floor, but there's music.'
'Well,' Maggie replies, 'do you folks want to go? I do.'
Before anyone can answer, she picks up her purse, puts it over her shoulder, and stands. She then waves at the waiter, calling him to our table.
Later that night in my hotel room, Maggie and I lie in bed, talking. She informs me, as if suddenly remembering, that she has recently talked with Jonathan; he will be arriving in Essaouira the day after tomorrow. In less than a week, she explains, the two of them will be returning to Paris, then to New York City.
After a moment of silence, I inform her that I too will soon be leaving Morocco. Perhaps, I suggest, we can meet in New York before I return to the farm.
'Why the hell are you going back to the farm?' She asks, raising her head off my chest and looking at me.
'Maggie,' I reply, 'why do you think?'
'To drive yourself mad,' she says, returning her head to my chest and rubbing my belly with her hand. 'Or should I say, madder?'
'Well,' I say, 'besides that, there are the – the legal matters. I mean, I have to put the farm up for sale; I can't just leave it there. I was thinking I'd probably keep the house and just sell the land.'
'Why would you keep the house?' she asks, running her hand along my side and up to my armpit, where she gently pulls at my underarm hair.
'I don't know,' I reply, looking up at the darkened ceiling. 'Maybe I'll retire there one day.'
'Do you think you'll ever want –'
She pauses for a moment and then resumes.
'I was about to say chickens. Do you think you'll ever want children?'
'Never,' I reply. 'I never want children.'
'Alright,' she giggles. 'You don't have to scream.'
I rub her bare shoulders, then kiss the top of her head.
'Do you ever want children?' I ask.
'Never,' she replies, mimicking me. 'I never want children. Or chickens.'
She turns and looks up at the ceiling.
'I hate them,' she says, becoming suddenly still. 'Well, I don't hate them, but I certainly don't want one, either. If I could somehow give birth to a sixteen-year-old, then maybe, but they're little, I just – I just can't relate to them. I don't know how to talk to them. They're like little aliens or – or cockroaches.'
I pull her close.
'Cockroaches,' I laugh. 'You're mean.'
'Maybe,' she replies, giggling again. 'But better I'm mean and childless than mean and – and trying to raise some little creature I can't even relate to. Right?'
'Right,' I agree.
The next day, after accompanying Baby to the bus depot, Maggie and I go for lunch with YaYa, then for a walk. YaYa, looking rather forlorn, returns to the hotel to write.
'I miss Baby already,' Maggie says, stopping to look at a sidewalk vendor's array of small Thuja boxes. The vendor, an elderly man with brown skin and a white beard, looks at us but says nothing.
'Oh, do you now?' I ask.
I watch her as she delicately fingers one of the small pearl-inlaid boxes.
'One of my guiding principles in life,' she says, turning toward me, 'is to have as –'
She stops, turning back to the vendor.
'Shukran,' she says, smiling.
''La shukran Allah wajib,' he replies, smiling in return.
'As I was saying,' she says, taking my hand and beginning to walk again, 'one of my greatest goals in life is to become friends with as many people as possible that I hate.'
'Thanks a lot,' I say.
'But not you, of course,' she laughs.
'Of course not,' I say, squeezing her hand in mine.
'I mean, why do we usually dislike someone? Because of how they make us feel when we're around them. Right?'
'Usually,' I agree, watching as two women, both shrouded entirely in black, walk slowly toward us, then pass.
'And if someone makes me uncomfortable,' Maggie continues, 'then I have to ask myself why. And the reason usually has more do with me than it does with the other person. I'm not talking about someone who sneaks money out of my purse or – or burns my neck with a lit cigarette. It's obvious why I wouldn't like them. But then there are the others, those who are boorish or ignorant or obnoxiously loud, or maybe one of those people I seem to dislike for no particular reason – people whose behavior usually does not directly effect my own. Like with Baby. I have to ask myself why I dislike such people. It sometimes seems obvious, and maybe it is. But why, really, should they bother me even one whit? They're not paying my rent, right? And to becom
e friends with such people, to understand them, can only benefit me. What I want – what I ultimately want – is to reach the point where absolutely no one has the power to even remotely irritate me. No one. That's freedom. Strength. And I want it.'
'Hey,' I say, 'I want that, too. Doesn't everyone?'
'In theory, maybe, but few people do anything to actually achieve it. Most people are friendly only whit those who are similar to themselves. Right? Who agree with the choices they make, have made. Seems like what most people really want is just a rose-tinted mirror. Nobody wants to ask any fucking questions, or to be asked any. And, besides, you are already like that. Nothing bothers you. Well, other than when you – when you break down.'
'Oh, really?' I reply, looking down at her.
'Maybe you're just an expert, like you say, at compartmentalizing things. But you're certainly the most laid-back brother I've ever known. Deadpan, I think, is the word. Even when you're angry.'
'I prefer smooth,' I reply, smiling.
'I'm sure you do,' she says, stopping to look in the grimy window of a small, cluttered bookstore.
'Isn't Arabic script beautiful?' she asks. 'Each letter is a tiny work of art. A short story.'
I nod my head, looking through the opened doorway into the shadowed, dusty bookstore. A small, thin man behind the counter looks up at me.
'A salaam aleikum,' he calls out, smiling.
'Aleikum salaam' I reply, waving my hand at him.
Folding my clothes and passing them to the attendant, I am aware of those behind me, dressing or undressing, watching me. Is it because I am black, I wonder, or simply because I am a foreigner?
I turn and discover that none of the ten to twelve men behind me are looking at me. I walk quickly past them and, opening the heavy, wooden door, enter the darkened, steaming chambers of the hammam.
Though it is crowded, there is little noise: wet feet across the stone floor, whispered intonations of praying men, and the steady, rhythmic sound of water pouring, splashing, dripping.
In each of the several low-ceilinged rooms is a single, low-watt bulb that illuminates little more than itself. A heavy, hot steam hands in the air.
Finding a vacant spot in one of the rooms' corners, I sit, cross-legged, on the warm floor and lean against the wet stone wall. YaYa and I have smoked a joint just minutes before, and I am stoned. I closed my eyes, my head spinning, and listen to the hypnotic rhythm of sound.
