The Serpent's Daughter

by Suzanne Arruda

  From the outpost there, the road stretched out for miles across the wasteland to the gorge of the Oued Ouem. Beyond the river the road climbed gradually for fifty kilometers, striving to reach an elusive, hazy vision of the Djebilets Mountains. Jade began to think she’d taken the wrong road out of Casablanca, except there hadn’t been any other option. Then as the Panhard struggled and wheezed up to the top of the pass, she glimpsed an island of emerald green in the distance, a palm oasis. Somewhere tucked inside that jewel lay Marrakech. As if to prove the city’s existence, a lone tower shot up above the trees.

  Just as seagulls are an indication that land is near, the presence of more people bore witness to the presence of water and a nearby city. They appeared walking beside donkeys, or sitting astride camels that moved in a languid motion, rocking the rider gently into oblivion throughout their long treks.

  By the time they sputtered over the ancient stone bridge over the Oued Tensif’s broad but shallow course, Jade wanted only to throw herself in the little river and let it wash away the dirt and exhaustion covering her. She skirted around the north side to the west through the palm grove and its welcoming shade, waiting for Marrakech to reveal itself beyond the towering minaret standing sentinel above the trees. Beyond the palms grew olive trees and past them sat the newer, whitewashed buildings of Gueliz, where the French resided. Jade barely noticed them, her gaze riveted by the immense red wall rising up out of the soil as if the Earth itself had risen and hardened. Marrakech.

  The ramparts of the red city loomed above her, the wall interrupted periodically by a gate. But what Jade found most curious were the evenly placed indentations that punctuated the wall. Some had chunks of timber sticking out, and she realized that the wall had been built up in sections by packing the earth in and around the scaffolding.

  She glanced across at Bachir, remembering that he was told to bring her here. Well, we’re here. If there was a time to watch for tricks, it would be now. She waited for him to make a suggestion, give an order, do anything. Instead he stared ahead at the first gate into the city, his face a stoic mask. “We’re here, Bachir,” she said after a lengthy silence. “Where do I go now?”

  “To find your mother,” he answered, without turning.

  “Yes, but where?”

  He shrugged.

  Jade began thinking aloud, hoping to catch Bachir’s reaction for any evidence of his involvement. “Mother was not taken by a Moroccan. They would not brave the jinni in the Azilah tunnels.” But you did, didn’t you, Bachir? “Now, where would a European hide Mother in Marrakech?” She remembered the note telling her to come to the Square of the Dead. Would Bachir suggest she go there, as well?

  Instead, he pointed to the French settlement of Gueliz. “There,” he suggested.

  Okay, that was a point in Bachir’s favor. She had no intention of blindly walking into any place called a Square of the Dead. Maybe it would be useful to make some inquiries as to new arrivals. She turned the Panhard down the closest avenue, looking for what might be a hotel. The eucalyptus-lined street boasted three cafés and a few pitiful shops displaying European shoes and other Western items before it ended abruptly at a deep ditch. She put the car in reverse, spun around, and stopped at the nearest café, where she inquired where new visitors might find lodging.

  “We have a room above the café,” said a poorly shaven, portly little Frenchman.

  “Oh? I thought it was taken already. I understood two men traveling from Tangier arrived yesterday. I’m sure you’ve seen them. One has a reddish-blond mustache.”

  “No, Mademoiselle. Very few visitors venture this far into Morocco.”

  Jade persisted. “They were traveling with a woman. She may have been ill. They might have carried her inside.”

  “I have seen no one new besides yourself. Did you wish the room for yourself?”

  “Merci, no. I must try to find my friends. I will try the consulate’s office to see if they have gone there.”

  Seeing that he couldn’t pawn off his room, the Frenchman grumbled under his breath for a moment. “You might try the Hotel de France. It is in the next avenue south.”

  “Merci.”

  Jade tried the hotel, only to hear again that no one new had taken rooms for several months.

  “When they come, do you wish me to tell them you are here?” asked the desk clerk.

  “No. That won’t be necessary. Perhaps you can tell me something about Marrakech. What is this Square of the Dead I have heard about?”

  The man chuckled. “Ah, that is a name for the great open plaza in the heart of the city. It took its name from the quaint old practice of once displaying the salted heads of executed prisoners there. Now it is a great gathering place,” he said, waving his hands in large circles. “Many shops, many storytellers. The Berbers, the Tuareg of the South, and others who do not reside in the city and so do not keep shops in the souk, gather there and sell their wares. Most entertaining,” he added, “especially in the morning and evening hours when it is cooler. You might find a few people beginning to meet there now. But you must enter the gates before sunset. They are closed soon after that.”

  Jade thanked him again and returned to the city gate only to find that Bachir was not waiting for her at the Panhard. Where did he go? She spied him standing outside a great gate, speaking with a cluster of Berbers.

  “Alalla,” he said as he left the men, “they have seen the men you seek. They came yesterday with rugs to sell, and a black machine came like a wild camel through the Bab Agnaou. They say one was a Nazarene. The other was an Arab.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “They went to the street of the riads,” he said, using the term for palatial town houses. “There are many princely houses there. And, Alalla, they said there was a woman with them. She was wrapped entirely in white robes.”

  One of the Berber men edged forward, avoiding Jade with the caution one showed when approaching a potentially dangerous reptile. He held his arms in front of him, elbows bent and wrists crossed above his chest while he spoke. Bachir listened, nodded, and turned back to Jade.

  “Alalla, he says the woman’s hands were bound.”

  Inez, still groggy, felt herself being lifted and carried. A slight nausea rose in her throat, and she struggled to fight it back. She heard the sound of a heavy bolt sliding against metal and felt herself drop. Whoever had carried her had deposited her, without ceremony but not roughly, onto a hard surface. She fell to her side and felt the bonds on her wrists being loosened. Then a heavy door shut and she again heard the bolt slide in its traces. I’ve been locked in, but where? She couldn’t see anything.

  She wriggled her hands and discovered she had limited range of movement in her arms. Suddenly the nausea increased, as well as a sense that she was suffocating. Her hands clawed at the fabric that enveloped her head and upper torso. Her nails worked a small rent in the fabric, and Inez forced her fingers inside and pulled, rending the thin cloth. She sat up, forced her arms and shoulders through the gap, and yanked the cloth back from her head and face before she collapsed to the floor, gasping and retching. Her stomach didn’t deliver anything up, a fact that registered with her brain. I haven’t eaten in a long time.

  With the swaddling cloth gone from her face, she was again able to breathe freely. She inhaled deeply several times to clear her head. What is that smell? It smells like . . . ? Suddenly she stood up and let the rest of the cloth drop from her onto the floor. Ether! The fabric had been soaked in ether to drug her. She kicked it away.

  Myriad sensations welled up inside her: hunger, fear, loneliness, dread. She longed for her husband’s strong arms to encircle her and hold her. “Richard,” she whispered. Would she see him again? Or Jade?

  Jade! What had happened to her? Inez remembered finding a note in her room from her daughter, entreating her to meet her, telling her she was sorry. Inez had gone to the rendezvous willingly. She’d wanted so much for them to reconcile. That, more than getting
any stud horse, had been the ultimate point of this trip. She wanted to bring Jade home with her so that her daughter could take her proper place in Taos society by Inez’s side. The task of hosting endless committees and dinners wouldn’t be so lonely then. So when the English-speaking Arab man outside the hotel offered to be her guide, she went with him.

  But Jade hadn’t been at the rendezvous. Now a fresh terror welled in her gut. Her heart raced, pounding hard against her chest. What had they done to her daughter?

  The bolt slid back in its slot and the door opened. Inez blinked against the sudden glow of a candle. An Arab with a wicked-looking knife tucked inside a broad sash quickly set the candle on a low table. Next to it he put a plate holding a small mug of water, a flat circle of bread, and something that smelled like a spicy stew.

  “Eat and drink,” he ordered. Before Inez could react to his unexpected entry, he slammed the door shut.

  Inez threw herself on the door just as the bolt slid back into place. She pounded her fists on the thick wood and shouted with all the breath she could muster.

  “What have you done with my daughter?”

  CHAPTER 9

  The Arab population resides in very interesting homes. Their houses are built without

  windows to the outside, at least on the ground floor, and those on upper floors are

  heavily screened. Instead, all the windows open to the interior courtyard. This provides

  beauty, light, and privacy for the ladies of the harem, thereby allowing a man to describe

  his wife or daughter as a pearl of inestimable beauty without risking contradiction.

  —The Traveler

  JADE WAS NEVER A STRONG BELIEVER IN COINCIDENCE, so she quickly dismissed the possibility that another woman had been abducted. It has to be Mother.

  “Bachir, do you know the way to this street they spoke of?”

  “Yes, but there are many houses there. How will we know which one holds your lady mother?”

  How, indeed. As Jade considered this dilemma, she noticed an Arab made a wider detour around Bachir and herself. Jade remembered Mr. de Portillo’s observation that the Berbers were not always fastidious in their prayer, and Mrs. Kennicot’s comment that the mountain dwellers weren’t particularly ardent Muslims. Treating us as infidels. It gave her an idea.

  “Bachir, if there were Christians living in the city, Nazarenes as you call us, how could we find out? Would the outside of the house look different? Would the Arabs put a mark on the door to warn others?”

  “I know of no such mark, Alalla. You think these people who took your mother are Nazarenes?”

  “They would claim to be, Bachir, if they were asked. But know that a good Nazarene would not abduct or murder anyone. ”

  “If they are Nazarenes, they would drink wine?” Bachir asked.

  Jade smiled, understanding where his questions led. “Yes, they probably would. And they would eat pork. So if someone delivered a basket of such forbidden foods to a door looking for the people who bought it, perhaps someone would point out the house of the Nazarenes.”

  “If they do not slay us first, Alalla.”

  “That is a danger I will face,” said Jade. “Will you help me?”

  “I will help you find your mother, Alalla, if you will then help the one who sent me to bring you.”

  “I will do what I can, Bachir,” she said, remembering that it was Bachir who found out the section of the Medina where her mother was taken.

  Jade decided she’d draw less attention to herself in the square if she were on foot. She drove the car into a small gully at the edge of the olive grove. Considering the Panhard was completely covered in the desert dust, it should be well camouflaged. Then, leaving the idling car, she took her knife and carved out a niche in the ravine’s mud sides, large enough to hold the bulky carpetbag. She shoved it inside and covered it with the dirt. If Moroccans truly feared the jinni that haunted buried treasure, then the bag with the opal jewelry and spare clothing should be safe in the dirt. To be certain, however, she parked the car against the wall, blocking the bag with a wheel. Then she walked back to Gueliz district, carrying only the dwindling money reserves, her flashlight, the matches, a spare dry cell, and her small Kodak in the canvas shoulder bag. She doubted the utility of her camera, but if an opportunity to photograph the culprit presented itself, she wanted to be ready. Her knife went back into her boot sheath.

  This activity only served to keep her anxiety from rising to the point of hysteria. Still, the dread for her mother’s safety became a bitter taste in her mouth. Blast it! Why would someone do this? If it was a kidnapping for ransom, surely they would have demanded some sum of money in the note.

  Besides, her mother never gave the appearance of looking wealthy. As long as Jade could remember, her mother declined any offer of diamonds or other showy gems from Jade’s father. Instead, she preferred the simple opal jewelry that Richard del Cameron had presented to her when they were first married. Inez had always said the ranch and her family was all the wealth she needed or wanted. Dad! The thought of his grief if anything happened to his wife overwhelmed Jade and she stumbled. Don’t think those thoughts. Mother is alive. She’s too proud to let anyone do her in without her consent.

  Jade returned from the French district just before sunset, armed with two bottles of wine and a hind leg from a wild boar. There was little meat worth eating attached to the shank, but that didn’t matter. All Jade wanted was for a cloven hoof to stick out in view. Bachir met her with a small woven basket, and Jade tucked the offending pig’s foot in with the wine bottles and draped her pocket handkerchief over enough of the contents to cover the gaps and make it look full.

  “Allāhu Akbar. Hayya ’alas-salāt,” came the quavering call of the muezzin from the towering minaret. “God is the greatest. Make haste towards prayer.” Immediately all the activity ceased as the faithful hastened towards the closest mosque. A few of the Berber people followed, but most did not, electing to either pray where they were or not at all.

  “Show me the way to these houses, Bachir, but stay clear of the square. These bad men told me in a letter to meet them there. They will be looking for me.” She pulled the hood of her dark robe over her head. “I will knock on the doors and find the correct one.”

  Bachir ran his gaze over her weak disguise and shook his head. “It will not do, Alalla. You wear a man’s cloak, but it is not striped like that of an Amazigh man.” He stuck out one leg, exposing a bare calf and a foot shod in a plain leather slipper. “Your boots are not that of my people, either.” He pointed to her head. “You have no cap and your head is unshaven. No one will believe you as an Amazigh peddler.” He reached for the basket, taking care not to touch the hoof. “I will go to the doors. You keep watch.”

  Bachir led the way into the city through the massive stone arch of the Bab Agnaou into the Kasbah. In the gathering dusk, Jade couldn’t make out much of the gate’s ornamentation, but then her attention was held prisoner by thoughts of her poor mother lying captive somewhere inside the city. She paid more attention to the mosque in front of her, trying to memorize the exit path. They jogged left in front of the mosque and turned east onto the broader Rue Arset el Maahl. Past the mosque rose another wall to their right. Bachir shied away to the opposite side of the avenue, his right hand held palm out against evil.

  “What is it, Bachir?” Jade asked.

  Bachir pointed to the wall. “El Badi,” he said. “Many jinni live there now.”

  Jade wasn’t sure what El Badi was, but if it didn’t involve her mother, she didn’t care.

  Once again, the streets began filling up with people as they emerged from the mosques, and several street vendors and water sellers in their distinctive wide-brimmed, fringed red hats took advantage of the evening traffic to gather some late-day business. A few feminine voices drifted down from the sheltered rooftops as the ladies enjoyed the evening coolness. She heard a child cry and a woman speak in soothing tones. Her own m
other used to speak that way to her long ago, back in the hazy memory of toddlerhood. Then it ended. The love was always there, but the songs were replaced by instructions in proper etiquette. Jade wiped away a tear of longing and followed Bachir farther into the city.

  Jade expected each house to bear some token of individual tastes, but from the exterior, there were few clues to indicate that these houses sequestered the wealthy and powerful. Perhaps fewer feral dogs lounged in the streets, but the plain wooden doors and the red-plastered exterior walls held no boasts of hidden opulence. A canopy of reeds covered the narrow passageway providing welcome coolness and privacy during the day’s heat but now effectively blocking out much of the lingering twilight.

  Jade found a dark recess and snugged herself against a wall to watch Bachir as he knocked on a door and shouted to the occupants within. So far the results had been discouraging. No one came to the first door, the next two occupants cursed Bachir for carrying food of the infidel, and at the fourth, an aging slave merely slammed the door in Bachir’s face. Now, after yet another twist in the narrow road, Bachir tried again, this time stopping at a house with a door knocker shaped like a large insect. This was the first piece of ornamentation Jade had seen so far.

  “I have delivered your food and drink.”

  The door opened inward, exposing a short entryway and an ornately tiled wall. Jade knew that the entries to these houses were convoluted with a set of chicanes, halls that twisted and turned, designed not only to block the view from the street but also to impede the progress of anyone entering with unfriendly intent. It made the defense of the home much easier. Barring any entry to this one stood a veritable black giant. The formidable doorkeeper wore a resplendent robe of snowy white trimmed with a broad green sash. A curved dagger with a shiny silver hilt lay tucked in the sash within easy reach. Jade did her best to catch the rapid exchange.