The Saffron Gate

by Holeman, Linda

  ‘Yes, Aszulay,’ she said, demurely, so changed from the forward and volatile woman who had held me in the palm of her hand the day before and the one before that.

  I picked up the cooling chicken and bit into it. The skin was crackly and tasted of tumeric. When we were done, we rinsed our fingers in the cool lemon water, and then Badou went back to the fountain and once more walked carefully around its narrow edge, his arms out for balance.

  Aszulay looked at my glass, still full, and poured himself another. I drank my tea, no longer hot.

  ‘So,’ Manon said, finally looking at me. ‘What do you think of my Tuareg?’

  I ran my finger around the rim of my glass. Aszulay said nothing.

  ‘You know of the Tuaregs? The Abandoned of God, the Arabs call them, because no one can impose a will on them. They obey no laws in the desert. Aszulay obeys no laws anywhere, do you?’ she asked him now.

  Again, he didn’t answer, nor did his face show any expression.

  ‘His name is a Berber Amazigh name. It means man with blue eyes. Quite unusual, aren’t they?’ she went on, still staring at me.

  How was I to respond? There was more silence except for the buzzing of flies and the soft breathing of Falida, who again crouched in the doorway, watching us.

  ‘And unlike so many of this country and those beyond, they honour their women,’ she said. ‘Don’t you, Aszulay? The Tuareg women have respect, and freedom. They go about uncovered, and the men are proud of them. They don’t hide their beauty away. Descent — and inheritance — comes through the women. Why don’t you tell our guest about your women, Aszulay?’

  I didn’t understand why she was badgering him. But he ignored her.

  ‘Manon has avoided telling me the reason you’ve come to Marrakesh,’ he said. ‘How do you know Manon, mademoiselle?’

  I licked my lips, glancing at her, and set my empty glass on the table. ‘I’ve come in search of Manon’s brother,’ I said.

  Aszulay’s face became very still. ‘Manon?’ he said, and something about the way he said her name filled me with foreboding. He looked back at me. ‘You’re … you are looking for Etienne?’

  I stood so quickly the edge of my skirt knocked my glass to the tiles of the courtyard. It shattered. ‘You know him?’ I asked, moving around the table. He stood; I had to look up to study his face. ‘You know Etienne? Is he here? Where is he? Please, where is Etienne?’

  ‘Mademoiselle O’Shea,’ he said. ‘Are you—’

  Now Manon stood as well. ‘Leave us, Aszulay,’ she said, her voice loud and firm, suddenly changed from the weak, clinging woman she had appeared throughout the meal. ‘I want you to go. I will speak to her about it now.’

  About it, she said. Not him.

  ‘Mademoiselle O’Shea,’ Aszulay said again. ‘Etienne—’

  Again Manon stopped him. ‘Aszulay!’ she said, her voice harsh. ‘This is my home. You will do as I say.’

  So. She spoke to him the same way she had spoken to me.

  He opened his mouth as if to argue, then closed it. He grabbed up the long expanse of indigo cloth from the end of the daybed — his turban — and strode across the courtyard, his blue robe flashing behind him as he went through the gate. It closed behind him with a bang.

  ‘Falida. Take the dishes and wash them. Badou, help her,’ Manon ordered.

  I stayed where I was. When the children had carried away the dishes and glasses, Manon patted the daybed. ‘Come. Sit beside me,’ she said, suddenly friendly, and that alarmed me more than all of her rude behaviour. I didn’t move.

  ‘Come,’ she said, again, smiling. ‘Sit here with me,’ she said, ‘so I can tell you where you will find Etienne.’

  Swallowing, I did as she asked, and as soon as I was beside her she picked up my hand. ‘So small,’ she said, stroking the back of it. ‘Your hands tell me you have worked, but not so hard, eh, Sidonie?’ I noticed her use of my Christian name. She said it with complete familiarity, as if she had a right. And then she gripped my hand with both of hers, squeezing my fingers painfully. I tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t release me. I was shocked at her strength, and so wary of her.

  ‘I have always worked,’ I said, distractedly thinking of the laundry, the housework, the cooking and gardening.

  ‘You haven’t worked like me. Not like the work I have done, to survive,’ she said, and in another instance I might have used the word coy to describe her voice.

  I thought of what Etienne had told me of his upbringing. ‘But … when you were young, with your brothers … Etienne always said his life was one of privilege.’

  When she didn’t respond, I said, ‘And you have this house. To live like this … surely your life can’t have been so difficult—’

  She made a sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth, shushing me, and I fell silent. ‘I have not always had the luxury of this kind of home,’ she said, confusing me. Now she fan her own fingers over the raised bump on my middle finger, and the callus on my palm where my paintbrush had rubbed for so many years. Even though the callus had softened and almost disappeared, she kept stroking the bump.

  ‘What is this from?’ she asked.

  ‘A paintbrush,’ I said.

  She shook her head, still smiling that awful smile. ‘It grows ever more interesting.’

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  After another endless moment she said, ‘But you saw my paintings.’

  It took a moment for her meaning to register. ‘In the house? Those … you painted those?’ My voice rose a halftone.

  ‘You don’t believe me?’ she said, lazily, the smile never leaving.

  ‘No. I mean yes, of course I believe you. It’s just that …’ My voice trailed off.

  Another mystery. Etienne had grown up with a sister who painted, and yet had never mentioned this fact to me when he looked at my paintings, when he spoke about knowing so little about art.

  ‘How did you learn to paint like this? Was it in France? Did you study under someone?’

  ‘In France, Sidonie?’ Manon gave a croak that was perhaps meant to be a laugh. ‘In France?’ she repeated, as though amused. ‘You think I have studied in France?’

  ‘But Etienne — his schooling in medicine. And Guillaume … Yes, I assumed you had, as well …‘Again my voice faded as I saw the expression on Manon’s face. She was no longer amused, but now angry.

  ‘Of course I didn’t study in France.’ Her tone implied I was an idiot. And then she suddenly smiled again. I shivered. ‘Now tell me about your paintings.’

  ‘Please. Can we not—’

  ‘But I insist. We are having a nice friendly chat. You tell me what I want to know, and then I’ll tell you what you want to know.’

  I gnawed, for a moment, on the sore on the inside of my cheek, ‘I don’t paint like you. I use watercolours. I paint plants. Birds.’

  Manon stared at me for a moment with a look I couldn’t interpret it. ‘So Etienne liked his little American souris to make pretty pictures?’ There was a mocking tone in her voice.

  I wanted to shout at her, I am not a mouse! How dare you? Instead I said, with as much calmness as possible under the circumstances, ‘Yes. Etienne liked my paintings.’ I could not anger her further. I knew how quickly she could shut down, and send me away with no answers.

  ‘He told you this? That he liked your paintings? You think he liked such tame subjects? What do you think he thought of my work?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. And I don’t know why you’re so angry with me. I made your brother happy, madame. Don’t you want him to be happy?’

  Still holding my hand, still staring into my face with a frightening intensity, Manon opened her lips, bringing her face so close to mine that for one fleeting moment I thought she would kiss me. I instinctively turned my head, to escape her mouth, and Manon put her lips to my ear. ‘Etienne is no more,’ she whispered. Or perhaps it wasn’t a whisper, but I found it difficult to unders
tand her.

  I pulled away from her breath on my cheek. ‘What? What did you just say? What do you mean?’

  Now Manon sat back, her grip on my hand lessening but not releasing, and her voice returned to normal. ‘I said that Etienne is no more, Sidonie. He does not live. He is buried in the cemetery behind Eglise des Saints Martyrs.’ In spite of the space between us, I smelled something sour and acidic on her breath, something that came from deep within her. It made my stomach sick. I swallowed.

  ‘You can’t mean this, Manon.’ I used her first name without thinking. My head moved swiftly from side to side, as if by its motion I could erase her words. I violently yanked my hand from hers. ‘It’s not true. It’s not true,’ I repeated, shaking her. ‘Tell me Etienne isn’t dead!’

  She nodded, no longer smiling, but staring at me, her eyes, ringed with kohl, huge. I couldn’t look away from them. I couldn’t catch my breath; it came in great rolling heaves, and Manon’s form thinned and wavered. I stared at her, choking now, while she simply sat, nodding, holding me with her eyes.

  TWENTY THREE

  I don’t remember how I found my way back to Hôtel de la Palmeraie. My senses weren’t working properly, and the alleys and souks and square were seen and heard through an opaque haze of colour and sound. I held my handkerchief over my nose and mouth as I rushed through the confusing streets of the medina — how long did it take me? Did I get lost? I know there was a jolting ride in a taxi, and finally I was safely hidden in my room.

  I lay on my bed but continued to press the handkerchief against my face. He’s dead, I thought, over and over. Etienne is dead. He’s dead.

  I remembered the exact scene after the miscarriage, the words echoing inside my head.

  My eyes and throat and head ached in an almost debilitating way as I thought of my lost baby, and of never, again seeing Etienne. A strong part of me believed that if I found Etienne, he would still want me. But even if he hadn’t … I would have known he was in the world. And that in itself would have been a small, strange comfort. Maybe I had dared to think that even if he turned me away in Marrakesh, some day I might open the door of my home in Albany — as I had the first time he had come to Juniper Road — and he would be sitting outside in his car.

  I saw his smile, saw his fingers closing around mine. Never again. Never …

  Flat on my back, rocking with my arms around myself, a low keening came, unbidden, from my mouth. The room was dark, and so hot. I heard the distant roar of D’jemma el Fna.

  Now my chest hurt as well as my head, and I found it difficult to breathe. How had Etienne died? Had he called out for me as he lay dying, or had he died so quickly that there was no time for even a word to pass his lips?

  Now I would never know why he had left me. I relived the hours I had wrestled with my choices in Marseilles that day as I lay in bed after the doctor’s visit: whether I would travel on to Marrakesh or return home. But I had made the decision to come, to try to find some answers.

  And now I had. I had an answer. It wasn’t why he had left me. But it was an answer, a terrible, and totally unexpected answer.

  It wasn’t right: first my baby, and now Etienne.

  I tried to slow my breathing, tried to will away the frightening sensation. But a huge and swooping panic filled me, and my heart beat so violently that I thought it would burst, frightening me further. I sat up in the heat, gasping. Was I having some sort of attack? Would I die here, like Etienne?

  You are not dying, Sidonie. You are not dying. Stop it.

  I wanted to go to the open window, to lean out and try to catch my breath; there was no air in here. But the very small task of walking across the room was too great. I lay down again, pressing my hands over the pain in my chest.

  I again thought of my unborn child, and what he or she would have looked like, would have felt like in my arms. Unexpectedly the image of Badou’s face came to me. I saw it, so accepting of the cruel mother that fate had presented him with; felt the way his warm little hand took mine, so trustingly, I kept my eyes closed, drawing in short breaths until at long last I again sat up. I ripped open my dress, shrugging out of it and my slip and underpants. I undid my shoes, tossing them on to the floor with loud thuds, and then pulled off my stockings. I drew in my breath at a new pain, and saw that my knees were torn, the drying blood sticking to my ripped stockings. I had no idea what had happened to them.

  Naked, I fell back on to the soft bed, and again I wept, not caring if anyone passing in the wide, opulent hall heard me.

  I didn’t think I would possibly sleep, but the morning sun on my face woke me. I lay still for mere seconds, blinking in the light, before the memory of what had happened the day before came back with a hard rush.

  ‘Etienne is dead,’ I said, aloud. ‘Etienne is dead.’ Dead.

  My head pounded. I pushed back the coverlet, and saw my body. I had never before slept without a nightdress, even with Etienne.

  I thought of my hysterical behaviour the evening before. Had I really had such pain in my chest that I thought my heart would burst open, the chambers and aorta spilling blood, killing me instantly? How foolish Etienne would have thought me.

  Etienne, always so calm and in control. I couldn’t imagine him any other way. Even when we had that first conversation when I told him about the baby, and he had stumbled with his English, and seemed a stranger, he hadn’t completely lost his focus. But then I remembered that one moment, the instant in the car when his face had betrayed him, where I had seen him uncertain, and fearful.

  Behind his almost infallible veneer, something fragile and secretive had lurked. What had he been hiding? What part of him was unprotected, and why had he worked at covering it with theory and distance?

  I lay on the bed all day, watching the sun move across the room. I stayed there, not bathing, not drinking or eating. Once someone tapped on my door and I called out for them to go away. I watched the shadows lengthen and turn to darkness.

  When the sun again shone through the windows, I was suddenly immensely thirsty. I wanted fresh orange juice. Taking my white slip from where it lay beside me on the bed, I pulled it over my head. As I rose, my knees shot through with pain; I looked at them, remembering, vaguely, that they had been bloody when I undressed. Now they were freshly scabbed, the bruises around the scabs dark and spreading. I tugged the bell cord to call one of the staff.

  Within a few moments there was a quiet knock on the door. Wrapping the bedcover around my shoulders, I opened the door to instruct the boy to bring me a pitcher of orange juice. But it wasn’t one of the boys who worked in the hotel. It was Monsieur Henri.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ he said, looking, for the first time since I’d seen him, flustered. ‘There appears to be a very uncomfortable situation.’

  ‘What is it?’ ‘

  ‘Downstairs. In the lobby,’ he said, as if unsure of how to continue.

  ‘Yes, yes, Monsieur Henri. Please. I’m very tired, and wish to return to my bed.’

  ‘There is a man,’ he said. ‘A man who says he knows you.’

  My legs suddenly felt as though they might give way. It had all been a mistake, or a terrible, macabre prank. Etienne was not dead. He was alive, and waiting for me in the lobby.

  ‘Monsieur Duverger?’ I cried out, putting one hand on Monsieur Henri’s shoulder. He turned his cheek, the slightest, and I realised I had offended him by grabbing at him. I took my hand away. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but is it he? Is it Etienne Duverger?’

  Now Monsieur Henri raised his chin, just the slightest. It gave the impression that the end of his nose lifted as well. ‘I assure you, Mademoiselle O’Shea, that it is not this Monsieur Duverger you speak of. It is a man … an Arab, mademoiselle. An Arab with his child.’

  I blinked. ‘An Arab?’

  ‘Yes. With some name of the Sahara. I don’t remember. And really, mademoiselle, I assured, him that we, at Hôtel de la Palmeraie, are not in the habit of allowing non-European men into the
hotel, let alone upstairs to the rooms. He insisted I come to speak to you. He was …’ He stopped. ‘He was rather menacing in his insistence. It appears, mademoiselle,’ he leaned closer, and I smelled a flowery scent, perhaps jasmine, ‘that he has brought you something. Food.’ He drew back. ‘It’s quite unacceptable. I told him that if you were hungry you would order from our extensive menu. But he stood there — and is standing there, I’m sure, as we speak — with a tagine and the child. The child is holding greasy fritters strung on a piece of grass. The food is, I’m afraid, creating a disagreeable oily smell in the lobby. And although fortunately, at this time of day, not many of our guests are about, I truly wish this man and child to be gone before—’

  ‘You may send them up, Monsieur Henri,’ I said, and his eyes widened, then he took in my hair, and the coverlet draped around me. I knew one bare, scabbed knee was visible where the coverlet didn’t meet, but I didn’t care.

  ‘Are you certain, mademoiselle? The safety of our guests is of the highest—’

  Again I interrupted. ‘Yes. I am a guest as well. And I can assure you that there is absolutely no reason for your concern. Please allow them up to my room. And also have a pitcher of orange juice sent up.’ It wasn’t my voice speaking. It was someone else’s, someone who wouldn’t be trifled with.

  Monsieur Henri’s nostrils tightened. ‘As you wish, mademoiselle,’ he said, and then, without the courtesy of a goodbye, turned and walked down the hallway, his back as stiff as if he had a steel rod inserted into his spine.

  I picked up my dress from the floor, where it lay in a crumpled heap, and put it on. I jammed my bare feet into my shoes, leaving them undone, but had no energy to attempt to comb through my hair.

  Within moments there was another knock on the door.

  I opened it to Aszulay and Badou. As Monsieur Henri had told me, Aszulay carried a tagine, while Badou held a long and tough green twine, strung with a half-dozen fragrant, sugar-coated beignets.

  ‘Aszulay. And Badou,’ I said, as if they didn’t know their own names. ‘What … why have you come?’