I’m not going a step farther. Inez tugged on her donkey’s short mane and attempted to turn him around. The man behind her blocked her way and pointed up the trail. Inez kicked the little donkey in the flanks, hoping to spur him on past her captor, but the poor beast just brayed and sat down. Inez tumbled over, rolling to her left and off the donkey’s rump. By now, the lead man had dismounted and run back to assist her. Gently but firmly he raised her, then put her back on the donkey.
The other man said something she didn’t understand and pointed up the mountain trail again. Inez had no intention of complying, but the lead man took care of that problem. He attached a rope of braided grass around her donkey’s neck and took hold of the other end. For a brief moment, Inez considered jumping off and making a run for Marrakech, but decided she wouldn’t get twenty yards before they caught her again. Then they might tie her to the animal. She decided to trust that this was all part of Jade’s plan.
But wait till I see that girl again!
Jade’s exploration had revealed no other person in the house, but she had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. It could be morning, evening, or several days later as far as she knew.
I need to get out of here and get to Mother. She wasn’t sure she should risk the front door in case someone else was keeping watch. If she could just make it to the central courtyard, she reasoned, she could climb that orange tree and get out onto the roof from the second floor.
She listened for sounds outside the guard’s room, heard none, and opened the door a crack. She was in luck. This was the same room she’d heard the snoring sounds come from just before she was captured. She wasn’t far from the orange tree and freedom.
Because she couldn’t see through the garden foliage to the other side of the courtyard, Jade didn’t venture out immediately. Someone might be sitting out of view on one of the stone benches, and she knew her disguise wouldn’t withstand close scrutiny. Forget the tree. Just head for the rear. No one seemed to use the back part of the house and she could always hide there until the coast was clear. She might even be able to stand on something and pull herself up onto the lower of the steps, something her mother hadn’t been able to do.
Mother’s going to have a conniption fit. She took three steps out of the room, then froze.
“What news?” The words were in unaccented English, and the voice came from near the fountain.
Jade couldn’t return to the guard’s room. If these people decided to check on her, they’d come this way and spot her immediately. She slipped into the next room and eased the door nearly closed, keeping an ear to the crack in an attempt to eavesdrop. Unfortunately the voices, low to begin with, were now almost completely muffled. She thought she caught the word “escaped.”
Good. Mother did get away. She risked opening the door an inch to hear better.
“. . . still have . . . daughter.” It was the first voice again. Something about it sounded familiar. Jade tried unsuccessfully to match it with voices she’d heard at breakfast in Tangier.
The second person spoke English with a strong Arabic accent. “He has arrived.”
“Show him in.”
Jade heard footsteps approaching, stopping. “Is all in readiness?” asked the newest arrival.
Jade’s interest perked up even more. That voice and the Spanish accent definitely sounded familiar, but the thick door made it difficult to hear clearly.
“Not quite.”
Whoever they were, they were coming closer. Jade looked around for a place to hide and was amazed at what she saw. The room was an old bath complete with a large sunken pool, now dry and cracked. Daylight filtered down in an array of colors from a multicolored glass skylight two floors above. Tiles of emerald green, gold, and sapphire graced the walls, while colored light danced on the once white floor. But it was the bright flash of bronze leaf from the red leather pouches stacked high in the corner that caught Jade’s eye. This was the room she’d glimpsed just before being hit. Was it the bronze I saw before, and not gold?
She had just enough time to snatch one of the pouches before jumping over the side of the dry pool. She slipped the pouch over her head and a shoulder, ran for the water conduit, and backed into it. No sooner had she pulled her head in like a turtle retreating into its shell than she heard the footsteps enter the room.
“As you can see, many of the bags are here, but the rest of them will not be ready for another week.” The voice, English, had the pitch of an Irish tenor, but softer, as though the speaker were hoarse. Jade had to strain to hear from inside the conduit.
“Only a small part has arrived,” continued the nonaccented voice. “These people are intolerably slow. I shall have to have my men encourage the pouch maker to work faster.” There was a brief pause.
“And the other shipment? Has it arrived?”
“No, but then the passes through the Atlas have only recently opened.”
“You should have sent around to the west and up to Essaouira. ”
“Too dangerous now. The damned French watch those old Portuguese ports.”
Jade heard the sound of leather being manhandled, then tossed back onto the pile. “I can wait if the quality of the rest will match this,” said the familiar-sounding man. He had shifted position and his voice came into the pipe more clearly. “It must be perfect. It is becoming dangerous even to do business out of a city as ungoverned as Tangier.”
Sweet Millard Fillmore on a camel, that is Patrido de Portillo. But who is he talking to? Jade tried to peer out the conduit but all she could see were trousers. There was no way to glimpse the other man’s face unless she stuck her head out of the pipe. She pulled back farther instead. Knowing one of the kidnappers was enough for her. Wait till I tell Mother. He said he was here to buy leather, but apparently that’s not all he’s taking out of the country. What are they waiting for to come down through the mountains?
“You need not worry. I have taken steps to ensure you will not be harassed,” said the Englishman.
Patrido de Portillo blew out his breath in a cynical, laughing snort. “A bribe, I suppose. The business becomes too expensive with so many officials wanting their cut.”
“Not a bribe,” said the other man. “Something more effective, I think. I do not wish to appear rude, but I’m afraid you have interrupted me in the middle of some important business. I will be in contact with you.”
“Of course,” said de Portillo. “You know where to find me.”
The men left the bathing chamber, shutting the door behind them. Jade squirmed out of the pipe and headed for the door. It would be only a matter of moments before they discovered her escape. She needed to get up that orange tree now. She grabbed the door handle and pulled, but it didn’t budge. Locked! The bastards have bolted the blasted door.
CHAPTER 11
Women in well-to-do Arabic households are kept in seclusion. Intricate window and
roof screens allow them to see out but not be seen. Except to visit a saint’s shrine, a
hammam, or to cross the roof to see a neighboring woman, they spend their lives in
their indoor household gardens and harem. Gossiping with the women from a neighboring
house is their only excitement, but it’s hard to imagine what they have to gossip about.
—The Traveler
JADE TOOK A DEEP BREATH AND FOUGHT FOR CALM. Okay, this room has a glass skylight. Maybe she could climb up, break the glass, and get onto the roof. She looked for anything to help scale the walls and saw nothing but slick mosaic tiles. There was no way she could reach that ceiling. Could she break down the door? Was there anything to use as a battering ram? Not without being discovered.
Then her gaze rested on the dry pool and the water conduit. If she couldn’t go up, maybe she could go out through it. After all, it had once carried water into the building from some outside source. It was wide enough here to fit her, and pipes usually narrowed near the outlet, not closer to their origin. The big question w
as, just how far did it still go?
Jade removed the turban and pulled off the robe, keeping only the guard’s knife and the leather pouch. She squirmed back into the pipe, this time going headfirst, keeping the knife in front of her. Better not be any blasted rats, bugs, snakes, or any of Bachir’s jinni in here. According to him, this was just the type of place those denizens of the underground preferred. Handy creatures, though. It seemed if anything went wrong, just blame it on a jinn. Jade wondered if her mother would believe such an excuse. Sorry, Mother. I was right behind you when this jinn grabbed me. What was she supposed to say if she met one and it tried to give her the old evil eye? Five in your eye? I’ll give ’em five in the eye. Only she’d put a fist in their face instead of a flat palm.
The baked clay duct climbed slowly for about fifty feet before it divided at a T-shaped juncture. Jade reached out and felt with both arms. One went up, or at least so it felt to her touch; the other sloped down, presumably to another building also with dry baths. This portion of the city’s princely houses had fallen into disuse and Jade wondered why they’d been abandoned.
She took the upward path, still squirming on her belly through the accumulated debris. It was pitch-black inside, but happily a little bit wider. She still couldn’t rise onto her knees, but at least there was enough room that she didn’t brush the top with her back. Another juncture, another slight rise before the pipe took a turn to her right and leveled off. The debris on the bottom now included substantial chunks of the upper pipe, some still sharp. Jade slowed down before she accidentally sliced her hand on anything.
Time stood still in the tunnel, with only the pounding of Jade’s heart to mark its progress. By now her captors would have discovered her escape from their dungeon, but did they know where she’d gone? Had they opened the bathing room and seen the guard’s clothing? Each time she paused, she listened, dreading to hear an echo of pursuit. Her hands hurt, her shoulders ached, her head throbbed, and ever since that last turn, she’d been getting wet. She pressed on. The blasted tunnel had to end somewhere.
It did, in a pile of collapsed clay and dirt. Jade lay in the pipe, struggling to register the brutal fact that she couldn’t go any farther. As long as she’d been making progress, she could ignore her throbbing knuckles and tired arms. Now they seemed to scream at her for attention. Idiot! That’s why the pool was dry. She started to shiver and recognized the signs of muscle fatigue.
Well, she couldn’t very well go back to that room and wait for them to find her. She needed another plan. For a moment, she thought about digging through with her knife. She patted the obstruction, trying to get a feel for how packed it was, until she reached to the far right and felt water. It seeped through in a steady trickle that flowed at perhaps a cup a minute, but who knew how much lay pent up behind the barrier? She might release a torrent and drown.
No, thank you.
There seemed to be no option but to wriggle backward and try one of the other pipes. True, they’d empty into another house’s pool, but from there she might make it to the roof. She decided to follow the water and started to shinny back down until she found the most recent T branch. She discovered it at the point she’d first started getting wet.
Not wanting to back down this pipe, Jade retreated a little bit into her old route, then, feeling with her hands, found the juncture that took the tiny stream and headed into it. It sloped down, which meant she’d end up in someone else’s plumbing. She just prayed this pipe didn’t get any narrower and that the end wasn’t covered. At least she hadn’t run across any vermin. I feel like a blasted cave salamander.
By the time Jade found the end of the pipe, she was ready to crawl through a den of jinni, she was that desperate to get out, and for a moment, she entertained the notion that she might have to. It was the sound of high-pitched conversation that set off the idea. She listened carefully and picked out three distinct female voices and at least one giggling child. A harem? She inched closer, careful not to make a sound. If someone thought anyone was creeping up on them, they might call for help or even close the pipe and leave her trapped inside. She didn’t relish either option.
Finally she could see the end. What do you know. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. It seemed since the water flowed so slowly, they didn’t bother to ever close the water conduit. Instead, they simply let it trickle into the bathing pool. From her vantage point a few feet back, Jade could see two of the three women. One, a girl of about fourteen years, stood in the pool with water to her ankles, holding on to a toddler’s hand. The naked baby marched in place, giggling and cooing as he splashed the young woman. The other, a middle-aged woman in green, sat on the edge and watched. The third was out of view, but Jade could tell from her voice that she was much older.
Jade gathered her wits about her, preparing to make her dash to freedom. Then with a sudden flurry of movement, she literally oozed out of the pipe and into the shallow pool. All three women screamed, their high-pitched voices reverberating off the enclosed walls. The young mother snatched up her son and pulled the folds of her scarlet and gold vestlike robe around him.
“Jenniya,” said the oldest, followed by something that might have been a plea for their lives.
Jade stood up and put her finger to her lips. “Ana mra,” she said repeatedly. “I am a woman.” What the tarnation was the word for “friend”? "Sāheb.” She knew she must look a fright so she quickly stooped and splashed some water on her face to clean off the worst of the mud.
The oldest woman, a wrinkled thing swathed in a black robe, calmed down first and dared to address Jade. “Who are you?”
Jade wasn’t sure that these three women, possibly secluded since birth, would understand if she told them she was an American. Instead she decided to repeat the word for “friend,” then pointed to herself and told them her name. “Ana Jade.” Then, taking her time to get the words right, she explained her predicament. “Bad men held me in a house. Will you help me, please?”
The thought of adventure and the novelty of a strange female emerging from their bathing-room pipe pushed aside the women’s residual fear. The three descended on her as one, touching her short black hair, matted with wet clay. They fingered her shirt and the brown overskirt, lifting it to observe the trousers underneath. Their own pants ballooned out from under their tight-bodiced robes, the younger girl’s in scarlet with designs embroidered in gold threads, the middle woman’s in green and blue. Even the old woman’s wrists and ankles jingled with gold and silver bangles from which hung many coins. The bracelets glittered as the women pawed and patted Jade. Clearly, they considered her homely brown clothes and lack of jewelry to be as much a subject of pity as her recent capture.
“Have you no brothers? Is your father poor?” were some of the questions they pressed on her. Jade said she had no brothers and her father lived very far away.
The eldest remarked that Jade clearly came from a distant land, as she spoke Arabic in an odd way. The woman’s pale blue eyes watered as her thoughts drifted to a different place and time. Perhaps Jade’s presence triggered some long-dormant memory in her mind, a time in her youth when she was sent from Circassia on the Baltic Sea to become the property of some man she’d never seen before. The moment passed, and the old woman patted Jade’s arm. A few words to the younger women and the three were galvanized into action.
The youngest held her baby and acted as a watchman, listening at the door for voices or unusual activity outside. Under the elder woman’s direction, the middle-aged woman slipped out and returned with the all-encompassing white veil worn by women when they ventured onto the roof or, more rarely, into the streets. She wrapped it around Jade and showed her how to hold it so that only her eyes showed. Satisfied that Jade looked like a proper woman on a simple visit, they escorted her from the bathing chamber towards the stairs to the roof. Jade need not have worried about being seen. No man other than the head of the house would have dared intrude upon the women’s quarters.
Jade turned to the little woman, now stooped with age, and wondered if she were the mother of the house or the first wife. She looked seventy, but might only be fifty if her life had been a hard one. Jade smiled and took the lady’s wrinkled hands in hers. “Shukran, thanks,” Jade said, and repeated her thanks to the other two women.
“Where will you go?” asked the youngest. Her soft black eyes expressed the horror of being alone in the streets, something unimaginable to one who had always known protective walls.
“To my mother,” said Jade.
“Ah,” said the others, nodding. That was well, then. She would be with family.
Yes, thought Jade, there was safety in the family, even one as odd as her own. After wishing them peace with many besmellāh, she bounded up the stairs and made the roof just as the muezzin called for noon prayer.
From the rooftop, Jade could see the high tower of the great Koutoubia mosque and reoriented herself. She was two streets over from the house where she and her mother had been held prisoner. After seeking out the best route to the French district, she looked for a way down. The roof was about fifteen feet off the ground, and Jade wasn’t sure she wanted to drop that far. That’s when she heard a woman’s voice call to her.
The second oldest of the three women popped her head up through the hole like a groundhog from its burrow. She pointed to the far edge of the roof. Jade followed her hand and saw a flimsy pole ladder lying next to several thin boards. The ladder, meant to carry a woman up and over the rooftop latticework to the neighboring house, barely reached the roof when Jade lowered it to the ground. She eased her weight onto it and scrambled down as quickly as she could, with the veil swaddling her. Once on the ground, she hurried through the maze of streets, using the position of the red Koutoubia tower as a bearing. Finally she exited the old city near the tower, discarded the white veil, and hurried west towards the Franciscan church.
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