by Tim Kindberg
He knew Chemchi would return — if she could. He cursed her for walking off like that, without telling him where.
He left the riad and walked down the quiet ways to the Rue Mouassine, where the daddy long-legs, the butterflies and bumble bees — he couldn’t escape that image that Chemchi had given him, however childish — flowed and bumped past. The road broadened there so there was a little shady spot with space to stop a while, the place where Ali sat.
He needed to prove to himself that he was good for something. But how? He started to day-dream. Each afternoon, he crawled through the gap in the Criée Berbère, lay on the carpet and visited cracked Marrakech. First he left a note in his bedroom in the riad, so the others would know where he was in case he didn’t come back. When he arrived, he talked himself past the gatekeepers, leaving them flummoxed in exactly the same way, the same scene re-enacted as though they had never seen him before. He wore a watch borrowed from Ali, and made sure he spent no more than a few hours there each day.
He grew bolder, not caring particularly what these clockwork people, these ghosts and automata, thought of him. And they were all so gentle. He stopped and asked as many people as he could whether they had seen his family, regardless of whether they were in the middle of buying something or talking to somebody. Each day he picked a different set of streets. He could cover all of cracked Marrakech in a few weeks. He could say that he had tried.
He was woken from his day-dream by a tap on the shoulder. A little girl stood beside him, snot dripping from her nose.
“You Akimbe?”
“Yes. Who’s asking?”
“Dunno who she was but she said to give you this.” She thrust a piece of paper into his hand and ran off into the crowds.
He looked around. No one.
****
Deobia had to act as though he were working for the enslavers, or he could do nothing about Radia’s fate. On his rounds, he made enquiries about Akimbe’s family. They led nowhere. None of the enslavers batted an eyelid when he asked about a man and his family amongst the cargo whose status had been overlooked: a king, who could be a source of valuable intelligence. But then the enslavers paid no attention to such things. They saw only bodies: muscles, teeth, bottoms and breasts. That was why Deobia was there, to pay attention, to talk to them, to learn their languages, to report up through the chain to Morchid. In this, he exercised his brain, the only thing that had kept him going through his stay in the cracked place. His means of survival. He’d not thought through the effects of working his brain for the enslavers: that he was making the trade more efficient by gathering intelligence, flying on the moped through the streets of the souks and the rest of the medina. The begoggled son of unknown people in a photograph. He knew the gang laughed at him.
Now he had become aware. Radia was how he could begin to make amends.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
THE BUS LET Chemchi off at a dusty, uninhabited spot on the winding road, surrounded by rocks and a few cedars. According to her counterpart in Cracked Marrakech, the village lay about a kilometre into the hills along a twisting pass. The air was dry and crickets chirped close and invisible, their sound emerging from the disappearing labour of the bus. The contours of the hills and the glugging of a stream somewhere nearby seemed familiar. But it was eleven years since Ali had taken her away, when she was a little girl; she didn’t know whether to trust her memory.
She picked up her basket, which contained Ibtissam, a few clothes and the pencil torch. She didn’t know what to expect or how long she would be away from home. ‘Home’, what a curious idea this had become – instead of Ali’s riad, she was about to go ‘home’ to her mother. In truth, nowhere felt like home any more. What was she going to find here? A mother who had abandoned her. It was better to get it over with, to be disowned face to face; easier not to hope anymore.
She began the climb, grateful for the headscarf that shielded her from the worst of the beating sun. The pass was steep and she began to sweat, her pace slowing despite her nervous energy. At last she reached a village, which consisted of nothing more than a few houses and sheds. Did she come from here? No one was about. All the shutters were up against the heat. She walked past each house in turn, to see if it stirred any recollections. Stillness lay over everything like a cloak. If no one appeared, she thought, she could say that she had tried to find her mother, or that she had come to the wrong village, been given false information – and return.
It was the last house, around a bend, that prompted a dim sense of familiarity. She walked up a path to the front door. Ibtissam, who had been asleep in the basket, awoke, looked up at her and miaowed. The door was open and it was very dark inside. She stood at the threshold, reached inside and knocked, then took a few paces back. A dog barked somewhere in the hills. The gruff voice answering from inside said, “One minute, please.”
A man appeared, about Ali’s age, cleaning his hands with a blackened rag. He looked kinder than he had sounded, and her thumping heart slowed a little. She wondered whether she had disturbed him from making the earrings that had been the clue to lead her here, whether men could make such delicate cascades, or would want to.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for my mother, Lalla.” Ibtissam had popped her head out of the basket again to point her nose at him. He looked at Chemchi kindly as he pondered.
“I don’t know anyone by that name. Did she use to live here? That’s very unfortunate, for a girl to have lost her mother.”
“It’s not my fault…” Chemchi couldn’t help herself, the words spilled out. She suddenly felt accountable to this world and the people who lived here. It was a sign, perhaps, that she had arrived in the right place.
He smiled, “Don’t worry, I think I know someone who can help you, someone who has always lived here and who knows everything there is to know around here.”
****
Judging by her wrinkled face, the woman must have been as old as Rime in Marrakech or the old woman in the fractured square of Cracked Marrakech. But this woman didn’t crouch. She stood, however hunched, before her. And although her frail head drooped she managed to lift it just enough to return her look.
“Chemchi!” Her eyes lit up and she stumbled forward to hug her. “Little Chemchi, it’s you after all these years!”
When the woman’s face brightened, Chemchi felt a flash of half-recognition. Was this Fatma, who used to call her over for a sweet fig or two? She recognised the old woman’s smell, a metallic odour carried also by the man who led her here, which Chemchi now imagined to be the smell of making coils and hoops for earrings. But in Fatma’s case it was mixed up with kitchen smells, of fruit and spices.
The woman reached up and stroked Chemchi’s cheek. “My little darling you’ve been away so long, and Lalla…”
“Yes, I’ve come to see her. Where is she? She’s not where we used to live.”
Fatma touched her cheek. “My darling, my poor darling.” She took a moment to take in what Chemchi was saying. “But she died my love, not long after you left.”
“No, where is she? I’ve waited so long to see her.”
Fatma took her arm and led her inside. The man followed. She bade Chemchi to sit but they all remained standing.
“Hasn’t he told you anything? Ali, wasn’t it, who took you to Marrakech? Oh I’m so sorry, my love. She was frantically worried about you, I could see that. It happened so soon — months — after you left. I don’t think she knew how to tell you how ill she was. She would barely talk about her illness and never explained what had become of you, to me or anyone else for that matter.”
Chemchi looked from the old woman to the man and watched their mouths move but make only noises, as though she’d come to somewhere so strange, where they spoke not another human language but a different speech altogether, the utterances of birds or stones. She opened her own mouth to a silent gape.
The woman put her arms around Chemchi, and the man touched her shoulder, casting his head down.
“She’s here. You’re lying. Why are you lying to me?”
****
Chemchi lay awake the whole night. The old woman had made up a cot for her and stayed as long as she could manage, telling stories about her mother. But Chemchi couldn’t take them in and both of them quickly tired. It was a relief when Fatma finally announced she would retire for the night.
The moon cast its thin light across her bed, where Ibtissam lay curled against her legs. Ali’s face appeared. She was furious with him and refused to let him explain, as if he ever would. Or could. She reproached herself, too, for doing nothing about her ignorance, all this time. And there was grief, that wanted her tears, tears for which she was not yet ready.
She could feel the night sucking everything out of her. But she resisted. Her mind tried to grasp at the events left behind in Marrakech and Cracked Marrakech; she forced herself to think of Morchid, Akimbe and Deobia, however far they were from this silent village in the hills. Akimbe. He needed her help. She was a fighter, wasn’t she? What had Lalla wanted her to be? If only she knew: it would be so much easier to have a mother who wanted her to be something, and not to have to work everything out for herself. Oh to be five years old again, to undo the destruction of her life here in the mountains, for her mother to be tucking her in, for Ali never to have turned up in his battered car.
Reaching over the side of the bed, she took the torch from the basket and switched it on. Playing the beam around the room, she saw its light glinting in the eyes of the now-woken Ibtissam, who cried at her, showing her fangs. She shone it as though she were a little girl again, her sword against the darkness to vanquish whatever lay within it.
She was too weary to know exactly what she must do. But she couldn’t stay here, not now; she couldn’t bear her grief in this emptiness – if she could ever bear it at all – however kind Fatma would be. She needed to be with what she knew. Events were unfolding in Marrakech. Chemchi listened. She let her mother speak to her. Lalla was kind, the way a mother should be, and gave her permission to leave in the morning. She told her that she could always return to the village, and perhaps even find some peace here. They would be together again. Very well mother, Chemchi whispered, I will first bring this story to an end.
As she cast the beam about Fatma’s room, everything lit up as it should be. No invisible carpet appeared. But she no more knew how the story would unravel than whether her torch might yet, on another pass, uncover something in the shadows.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
THEY LEFT THE riad in solemn silence. Ali thought Akimbe would just have to work out where they’d gone when he came back. If he came back.
At the Rue Mouassine, Deobia walked on ahead. Ali and Radia followed behind, watching the back of his head, his squashed round fuzz of hair. It was something to see him walk, as though he were not meant for putting one foot in front of the other but should always glide above the ground.
“He’s just a boy. And that other one, who’s gone missing, a child. They’re children you’ve got mixed up in this,” said Radia. “And all of us are saving your neck.”
“What are you worried about?” said Ali. “You’ll get your freedom. Just concentrate on what you have to do, and do it well.”
“I hated the farm but at least I knew where I stood. Now I don’t know what I’ve got myself into.”
Ali took her arm. “We can take you back there if you like. There are plenty of others who would be glad to replace you.” Deobia had turned and was watching them. He started to walk back.
“Don’t worry. I won’t upset your precious plans. I’m just a slave. What is that? A nothing. You don’t need to worry about a nothing. Take my hand.” She pressed Ali’s hand around hers. She was strong and it hurt. He flinched and looked around to see if anyone had noticed what this woman was doing to a man in the souks.
“What do you feel?” she said. He wrested his hand from her grip.
“You feel nothing. Empty space. A ghost. But it hurts, doesn’t it?”
Ali pressed her on through the crowd. They rejoined Deobia, who tilted his head trying to understand what he had witnessed. The three walked on close to one another, to their appointment with Morchid.
****
Morchid examined his huge hands, as though curious about what they would do next: chop, or strangle, or bring a morsel to his mouth.
“You’ve brought me two people and I asked for one. Explain.”
“Morchid, this is Lalla, Chemchi’s mother. And this one you know, surely, it’s Deobia, he’s one of yours. I asked him to help me find her.”
“You told me you knew where she was.”
“I believed so. I was wrong. She had moved away.”
“And do you merely ‘believe’ she is the one?”
“No, no. It’s her. Of course it is her.”
“What help did you need?” Morchid continued not to look at them. Deobia opened his mouth to speak but Morchid shushed him with a hand.
“She’d moved, that’s all. It’s been a long time. No one seemed to know anything about her. I suppose because she hadn’t wanted Chemchi to find her, after letting me take her away. I asked Deobia to make enquiries. I know he’s one of yours but I thought you’d want me to use the best to find her. He is the best and he tracked her down. So here we are.”
“He’s not the best. He failed to find something of mine. Someone is better. But you helped Ali find this woman. How?”
Deobia answered looking at the ground. “I went to the village where she had lived. It was a matter of finding the right person, the one who would open up.”
“And how did you find the right person?” As Morchid drew up close Deobia could see his pupils for the first time. Was that the eyelid lights he saw there? It was not possible to look for long.
“I talked to a slave who comes from there. I promised to bring back news if she could give me a lead.”
“And the message you brought back?”
Deobia thought quickly. “A man had married at last, someone she had loved.”
“You put her out of her misery?”
“No, I made her more miserable but I did as I was asked.”
“Do you always do as you are asked?”
“I serve those who have been good to me. I repay favours.”
“And Ali?”
“No, I served you in finding her. Didn’t I?”
Morchid turned back to Ali. “You see? You’ve been factored out again. Oh, but look at you, so scared.” The sweat was dripping from Ali’s face. “Were you worried that your boy would say the wrong thing? Might he have betrayed you? It’s good for you that you are associated with Chemchi. It means I have to keep you around a little while longer.”
Morchid sat and indicated a place for Radia beside him. She walked past the little shelves of black boxes. Ali flinched when she stumbled slightly on the edge of a carpet.
“You’re right to be nervous, all of you,” Morchid said. “Much depends upon this. More than you know.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
THE ADDRESS ON the note the little girl gave to Akimbe was of a disused restaurant. It was a place abandoned in a hurry by its bankrupt owners and left as it stood, ready for the diners the next day but with no staff to run it. There was a way in via the rooftops. If someone came in — and prospective purchasers would be looking over it — it was easy to leave that way before they could see you. That was why Chemchi had chosen it.
As she picked her way among the tables, she saw him sitting at one of them. Ibtissam quickly left her arms, off to find one of the scurrying mice that scratched around unseen.
“Are you shaking?” She put her basket on the dining table.
Akimbe sat slumped, his place set with knife, fork and spoon. He did not reply.
“When did you last eat? You mus
t be starving,” she said.
“I’ve been waiting for you. I didn’t know where you were. I’m scared.” He wouldn’t look at her.
She sat next to him and pressed her hands to his cheeks, pulling his face towards her. He was crying.
“What a pair we are,” she said.
“Where have you been?”
“To see my mother.”
“You’ve found her!”
“No, I have lost her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind.”
“I haven’t found mine, either.” He pulled his mother’s bracelet, his only possession, from his pouch and placed it on the table.
“There are things we must do. Will you do as I ask?”
“Of course.” He was a pale shadow of the feisty son of a warrior she had released from cracked Marrakech. She was sick of seeing lives crushed. She couldn’t bring herself to smile to reassure him.
“I won’t stand for it anymore — none of it,” she said. “And when I’ve dealt with Morchid we’ll find a new life for you here while we look for them. I promise you.”
“I want to believe you but you should see yourself. You look tired. You could do with some help yourself.”
“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence.” A half ssmile passed between them.
****
Akimbe was the only one of the three who was below Morchid’s radar as far as they knew. He became a messenger between Chemchi in the abandoned restaurant and Ali in the riad. Even Deobia might have been watched so they didn’t tell him about the restaurant.
The messages were all one-way. Chemchi couldn’t bring herself to speak to Ali even via Akimbe. How could she ever forgive him?
Ali sent word that she should under no circumstances appear until he said it was the right time. She scoffed when Akimbe told her.
“I’m not interested in what he thinks,” she said. “But what about her — what does Deobia say about her?”
