by Esther Freud
I confided in my sheep that he must be a very stupid man not to understand the difference between smelling and picking. Mum defended him. She said he lived in a state of extended spiritual ecstasy and that when he came down to earth it often made things rather difficult.
Everyone who had attended prayers was invited to eat at the Zaouia. That morning’s sheep turned on a spit in the outside kitchen and the smell of the roasting meat drifted through the mosque in a haze of herbs and mouth-watering temptation.
‘Are we going to stay here for ever?’ I asked Mum, as, dazed and still half asleep, I waited for my kebab.
But Mum only said, ‘As long as we need to,’ and went to talk with Selina.
Selina was a lady who had been living at the Zaouia for years and years. Selina was sixty. Before she was a Sufi she had been a magician’s assistant. I liked her better than anyone else even though she refused to show me any tricks. She said she couldn’t remember tricks now she was a Sufi and even though I thought she was beautiful with her white hair and almond eyes, whenever Mum talked to her it made me worry and I thought of Bea and how she must think we had forgotten her.
Whether it was Selina’s magic’s fault or not, we stayed at the Zaouia – and the longer we stayed the more I hated it. Not because of the mosque, or the days themselves, which were a calm round of courtyards and prayers and whispering corridors, but because of the nights. Because of the Black Hand. I was convinced the disembodied hand was only waiting for its moment to close its sooty fingers round my throat. I lay awake against the warmth of Mum’s sleeping body and waited for the slow thud of its approach. With every night’s reprieve my anxiety did not lessen, but a new fear, a wild and uncontrollable fear, took hold of me. The Black Hand was going to strangle Mum.
Now I stayed awake at night with all the vigilance of a bodyguard, and when I could hardly bear to breathe in case I missed a noise, a clue, the thud of a thumb, I lifted my trembling hands and held them gently round her neck, lacing my fingers together so that not a chink of flesh was exposed. If Mum were strangled, my thoughts whirred in the stillness of our white room, I would be stranded for ever at the Zaouia. I saw Bea sitting at a window in Sophie’s house hating us both for forgetting her and never knowing that I was trying to escape over the wrought-iron gate with the red-bearded sheikh close and grasping at my ankles.
I woke every morning, clammy and damp in a tangle of sodden sheet, but always in time to remove my fingers from around Mum’s neck, the threat of the Black Hand seemingly insubstantial beside the misery of yet another ruined mattress. Mum didn’t speak about my accidents but began wrapping our mattress in a plastic sheet that creaked and crackled as I lay in wait for the inevitable murder to be carried out.
Soon our white sheet, hand-washed by Mum, was a daily, dismal reminder of the night before, flapping dry on its line in the courtyard. I was sure I could detect a smirk of satisfaction on the face of Sidi Muhammad as he glanced from me to it, as though a punishment dreamt up by him were being carried out. I decided that if the worst came to the worst, I would run away and join a circus. Joining a circus would mean learning a trick. A new trick. Or any trick. I leant against the waxy wool of that day’s sheep and dreamt.
I saw myself trumpeted into the ring in silver sequinned tights, heralded as the youngest ever walker of the tightrope. The lions in their cages growled in suspense and the crowd gasped while I, high above them, shimmied across the roof of the circus tent on a hairline wire.
I would have to practise. I glanced over at the washing line. It drooped, wall to wall with drying clothes.
I could learn to juggle. I thought of my frustrated efforts in the garden at the Mellah as I tried to catch the bruised and sagging orange as it plummeted from one hand to the floor. Bilal had been encouraging at first, but as the days went by and the heap of squashed and abandoned oranges piled up in the garden he remained silent.
I decided I would teach myself to walk on my hands.
I began training that afternoon in a deserted yard behind the outside kitchen. It was where the sheep was dragged, its hind legs rigid in resistance, to have its throat cut with one slash of a knife.
‘Hup, hup, hup,’ I yelled, raising my arms for a flying dive as I raced across the yard, but at the last moment, as my hands touched down, my legs, which had been ready to soar into the air, lost confidence. They clung to my body at a pathetic angle, so that the flying leap that was to result in a handstand ended in yet another head-over-heels.
I lay on the ground and stared up at the sky. I thought about balancing acts on Bilal’s shoulders and the well at the Barage where I had learnt to somersault from such a height. I dreamt about the acrobats that performed like red and green lizards in the square in Marrakech and how happy I would be if only I’d been born into their family. I lay in the sun and thought about the people who believed me when I told them I remembered my last life and how it had been lived out as an angel. I wondered if them believing me meant it could be true. I made a decision. I would start sleeping in the afternoons. If I slept in the afternoons I could stay awake at night. Then not only would I be on guard at the moment when the Black Hand rattled the handle of our door, but I would have a way of proving to Mum that I was too old to need a plastic sheet.
My plan seemed to me a great success. That first night I was convinced I had stayed awake till morning and even congratulated myself on getting up to pee in the bucket by the door. But even though I felt the shiver of the cold metal on my flesh, and remembered distinctly the sound of water drumming, I caught myself off guard, waking up to find it had only been a dream. There was the warm and familiar smell of my nightie sticking damply to me, and the bucket was empty.
‘I think it would be nice to get home in time for Bea’s birthday,’ Mum said one day as we waited for prayers to begin. I had curled up on the floor of the mosque for my regular afternoon sleep. ‘Would you like that?’
I was so excited I couldn’t answer.
Bea’s birthday meant that very soon it would be my birthday. Bea did everything first. It was useful because once Bea had done it I always knew what to expect. That was what was wrong with the Zaouia. Bea hadn’t done it first. Or ever. If Bea were here, sleeping on a mattress on the other side of the room, maybe the Black Hand would turn itself back into a horror story in John’s voice, loud and pretending to be scary.
Last year on my birthday we went on a picnic to the woods outside Marrakech in a horse-drawn taxi. Bilal had been there and Linda and Mob. Mum had given me a wooden box with leaves carved on it. I wondered what had happened to it. I leant against the damp wall of the mosque, perspiration dripping into my turban, and tried to remember what we had done last year on Bea’s birthday. I knew it had been a surprise and, after two weeks of waiting, mine, even with the horse-drawn taxi, was a disappointment.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mum and I boarded the same train for Marrakech we’d jumped from all those weeks before. Selina came to the station to see us off. I watched her hopefully as our train gathered speed, convinced that at the last moment she would relent and let fly at least one white dove from the sleeve of her djellaba.
It was early evening when we arrived in Marrakech and we went straight to Sophie’s house to collect Bea. The house was shuttered and dark and there was no sign of anyone at home. Mum said they had probably all gone out for supper and if they weren’t in the Djemaa El Fna someone would be sure to know where to find them.
They weren’t in the Djemaa El Fna. Even the Fool, who wiped tears from his eyes as he sat at our table, didn’t seem to have ever heard of Sophie. Bea, he was sure he had seen, but he couldn’t remember when. Mum ordered two bowls of bissara, but by the time it came a hard lump had risen up in my throat making it difficult to swallow, and with the first scalding spoonful I stripped the skin from the roof of my mouth. I kept thinking Mum must know where Bea was. Maybe she was keeping it a secret so that it would be a surprise when we found her, but late that night when
we arrived at Luna and Umbark’s, it was Luna who was surprised.
‘I was beginning to think you’d emigrated,’ she said. Umbark was not at home.
Mum apologized. ‘It’s just that we’ve tried Sophie’s house three times now and there’s no one at home.’
Luna looked puzzled. ‘They moved,’ she said. ‘Not long after you went away. He decided he needed the countryside to write.’
‘Whereabouts in the countryside?’ There was panic in Mum’s voice.
‘I’m not sure. I expect I could find out.’ Luna was pouring tea. ‘But Bea didn’t go with them. In fact there was a bit of a scene.’ Luna paused to concentrate as she raised the silver pot high like a Moroccan, cooling the tea in an arc before it settled in its cup. ‘No. Bea wouldn’t go,’ she said admiringly. ‘She refused to go. I think she was frightened that if she went away anywhere, you might not be able to find her when you came back.’
‘Well, where is she then?’
‘I would have had her here, but . . .’ Luna glanced down at her stomach. It had ballooned under her clothes while we’d been gone. She looked around the room as if reminding herself how small it was. ‘There’s a man who lives in a communal house in the Medina . . . the man’s name I don’t know, but he has a dog, the dog is Mashipots.’
‘And Bea went there?’
Luna had to restrain Mum from going to find her right then in the middle of the night. She made up a bed for us in the corner of the room and pretended not to notice when Mum took out the plastic sheet and slipped it under me.
We arrived at the communal house so early that we had to hammer on the door before even the dog began to bark. Finally a shutter clattered open and a man looked out.
‘Bea? I’ve come to get Bea?’ Mum shouted up.
The man frowned. ‘Who?’
‘Sophie? Are you a friend?’
‘What?’ The man rubbed his eyes.
‘Do you have a dog called Mashipots?’ Mum’s voice was strained.
The man disappeared. We waited. Another shutter opened.
‘What’s Mashipots done now?’ A new man leant out, naked.
‘Is Mashipots your dog?’
‘What if she is?’
‘I’m Bea’s mother.’
The man pulled back into the room and drew the shutters tight together. Eventually the door opened and a square-faced, white-and-tan dog flew out and jumped up to lick my face.
The man stood in the doorway. He was wrapped in a woman’s dressing-gown. ‘Bea’s old lady, eh?’ he said. ‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, man, but she’s not here. Me an’ Bea – we didn’t quite see eye to eye.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I mean is that she ran off. Went out to buy a packet of cigarettes like, and, well, never came back.’
‘Didn’t you look for her?’ Mum was pale. ‘Down, Mashipots.’ She kicked the dog who had its front paws on my shoulders.
‘Easy, lady,’ he said as Mashipots whimpered away. ‘I didn’t look for her because I thought if she wants to stay missionary-style with that old girl at the polio school, it’s all the same to me.’
Mum didn’t wait to hear any more. She tightened her grip on my hand and dragged me away.
There had been a party, and the trestle-tables were covered in half-eaten sandwiches and long pools of spilt lemonade. The room was full of children – boys with cropped hair, some even shaved, and mostly they had sticks to help them walk. Mum and I stood in the doorway and watched Bea coming towards us. She had grown taller and wore a dress that I had never seen before. It was checked a little like the tablecloths and had puffed sleeves. She carried a plate of cake in her hand.
‘Would you like some of my birthday cake?’ she said when she reached us and I took the plate and began to cram the yellow sponge into my mouth.
‘Happy birthday, darling,’ Mum said and went to hug her.
Bea stiffened. She pulled back and introduced Patricia.
Patricia was older than Mum and taller, and was dressed very smartly with lace-up shoes. She watched as I gobbled my cake.
‘So you made it. Just in time,’ she said, resting her hand on Bea’s shoulder. ‘Come and join the party.’
Patricia took a plate and loaded it with sandwiches and fruit and biscuits from the table and handed it to me.
‘It’s my birthday soon,’ I told her.
‘Really?’ Her voice was cold and she walked away to lift a boy off the floor who was dragging himself away from the table, using his hands and nothing else.
Bea was on Patricia’s side. They sat together over English tea with milk and sugar and talked about their own private things. They talked as if they had known each other for ever.
‘Why did you run away from Peter’s?’ Mum asked. Peter was the owner of Mashipots.
Bea looked at her as if it were obvious. ‘He made me do hours and hours of maths homework and when I wanted to go to the toilet he said I could only go if I called it “the shithouse”.’
I started to giggle.
‘But I bet you’ve never had a birthday party like this before,’ Patricia said consolingly.
Bea shook her head. ‘Never.’ And she fixed Mum with her Malteser eyes that were rounder than anyone else’s.
‘Me, neither,’ I said. I wanted to be on Patricia’s side too and have a birthday party like never before.
I asked Mum why Patricia didn’t like me.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘she can’t stand me, either.’
In the middle of that night, when I crawled into her bed to avoid the chill of my wet sheet, she whispered, ‘We’ll leave before she finds out,’ and then added with a shiver, ‘she reminds me of my mother.’
Patricia thought of all the polio boys as her children. She was very strict and dressed them in spotless white. She kept their hair so short it bristled. Bea talked to the boys and played with them, complicated games with pebbles and sticks that had to be caught and counted on the back of your hand. I tried to join in, but I was frightened by their twisted and emaciated legs and the boniness of their skulls with so little hair to hide behind.
Bea and I waited at the polio school while Mum looked for somewhere else to live. Patricia had objected to us going because it would mean missing lunch.
I sat with Bea on the steps of her dormitory. ‘Don’t you want to come and sleep in our room with us?’ I asked her.
‘No, I like it here,’ she said. ‘It’s like being at boarding-school.’
‘Have you ever been at boarding-school?’
‘No, stupid.’
I was losing track of what Bea had and hadn’t done.
‘Do you like Patricia better than Mum then?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Mum’ll be very unhappy.’
‘Really?’ she sounded like Patricia, and she skimmed a stone hard across the concrete.
I tried to think of something else to say. Everything in my head was jumbled and arguing. Bea continued to throw stones that were pieces of concrete that had come loose from the base of the step and I looked at my feet and wondered if I should tell her about the sandals that I left on the train.
‘So tomorrow we’ll move back to the Hotel Moulay Idriss,’ Mum announced. She sat down on the step between us and took a packet out of her bag. She handed it to Bea. ‘Happy birthday.’
Bea unwrapped her present slowly. Inside was a necklace of black and orange beads. Bea lifted up her hair for it to be fastened. It fitted tightly round her neck. She smiled a small smile in spite of herself.
That night Patricia and Mum had an argument. It started after supper when Bea spilt coffee on her checked dress. Patricia said it was ridiculous that a child of her age should be allowed to drink coffee just because she liked it, and then she put her arm around Bea and called her ‘my little orphan’. Mum’s eyes blazed and she cracked her plate down on the table so that it splintered. Patricia stood up. She insisted if they were going to argue they move into another ro
om. The polio boys were taken off to bed, and Bea and I hovered as near to the closed door as we dared.
‘What’s she saying?’ I whispered.
‘Who?’
‘Mum.’
‘I don’t know,’ and Bea tapped me on the shoulder and hissed a murderous ‘Mashipots’ into my ear as she danced off down the row of tables.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘Akari said he saw Bilal. He was in a crowd at the Gnaoua.’ We were walking through the narrow and familiar streets that led towards Nappy House.
‘Bilal, Bilal, Mashipots and Mob,’ I sang as we trudged along in the dark. Bea and I dragged the tartan duffle bag between us. ‘Polio, powow, Zaouia and shithouse.’ I was composing a new song especially for Bilal. ‘Trampolining, fire-eating, central heating, shithouse.’
Moulay Idriss showed us to our old room and even donated two candles to unpack by and to light our way back and forth from our room to the toilet on the landing.
Mum read aloud a whole chapter of Monkey before she tucked us in. The Black Hand will never find us here, I thought as I lay on my mattress with Bea breathing softly by the other wall and Mum reading on by candlelight as she always did.
When I woke in the blackness of the shuttered room to find my bed still dry, I fumbled my way across to Mum’s mattress to tell her the good news and to crawl in against the shininess of her nightdress, but as I edged my way under the covers I nudged up against the hard limbs of another body. A man. My face crimson I crept silently back to my own bed.
When I woke in the morning, Bilal was lighting the mijmar as if he had never been away. I leapt up with a Red Indian war cry and threw myself at him. He stood and spun me round so fast I thought I would faint.
