The Saffron Gate

by Holeman, Linda

  She didn’t answer, but took Badou’s hand.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, as they started to walk away, Badou looking over his shoulder at me. I followed them. ‘I’ll come with you.’ They were going in the opposite direction to Sharia Zitoun.

  In this city of strangers I was surprised to realise how good it felt to see someone — even these two children — whom I knew.

  Falida shrugged one shoulder as if it didn’t matter whether I followed them or not. We went down harrow passages I hadn’t yet discovered, and then Falida opened an unlocked gate. I had to duck my head to pass under its stone lintel, and when I straightened up, I saw that we were outside the medina. A Moroccan graveyard lay behind a low crumbling wall. Atop the wall was a tattered sign, written in both Arabic and French: Interdit Aux Non Muslemans. Forbidden to Non-Muslims. I stopped.

  But Falida climbed on the wall, reaching down to pull Badou over. They walked among the scattered mounds. There were no trees, no flowers, no headstones apart from a few tilting, broken tiles at the head and foot of some of the newer graves. Garbage was littered about. It was a bleak and desolate place.

  ‘Wait,’ I called again, and scrambled over the wall after them. I didn’t like the idea of Badou being taken into such place.

  Falida was looking for something, stopping by mounds and peering closely at them. I stayed with them, not understanding what she was doing. Badou said nothing, but tightly clutched the girl’s hand.

  And then, at one of the shallower graves, she set down her basket and prised Badou’s hand from hers, squatting. Badou moved closer to me. Instinctively I reached out from the folds of my haik, and Badou gripped my hand, watching Falida as I did.

  When I realised what she was doing, I was horrified. This grave had loose soil tossed haphazardly over it, and she was digging in it with both hands. ‘Falida,’ I said, but she ignored me. As she pulled away more rough earth, I saw the edges of a rotting muslin shroud. I turned Badou so that his face was against me, and pressed my hands on his shoulders.

  ‘Falida,’ I said, more sternly, and she stopped digging, looking up at me. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I fetch for my lady,’ she said.

  ‘Fetch what?’

  ‘She needs,’ she said.

  ‘What does she need from here?’ I asked.

  But now Falida stuck her hands down, feeling around. As the soil moved, I saw the shape of a skull, covered in the muslin, wedged into the narrow opening. It was on its side. I swallowed, keeping Badou’s face against my haik. I wanted to stop Falida, but she moved about gingerly, although with purpose and familiarity, tearing at the aged shroud, which fell apart at her touch. And then, to my shock, she pulled out a bleached, brittle bone. ‘Only from old grave,’ she said, smiling, holding it up. ‘Heat bake bones.’ The bone was roundish. She put it in her basket. ‘One more,’ she said, putting her hands back into the soil.

  ‘Will Aisha-Quandisha get us?’ Badou asked, his voice muffled against me. He was trembling. Why had Falida brought him to this terrible place, to watch her grisly behaviour? Had Manon sanctioned this?

  ‘Not if you are good boy,’ Falida said, but looked around, her head jerking on her neck, her eyes wide.

  I thought the person Badou named might be a watchman for the cemetery. ‘Where is he?’ I asked Falida.

  ‘She. Is woman, but legs from camel. Bad demon. Eyes like …’ She stopped. ‘Fire. Comes to graves at night, catch mans. She likes mans.’

  ‘I’m taking Badou home,’ I said, unable to bear his trembling. I took his hand, and as I started to step over the narrow grave, Falida shrieked. I stopped, my foot in the air.

  ‘No, no, madame,’ the girl said, her voice incredulous. ‘No step.’

  I put down my foot.

  ‘Step over grave, no baby grows for you,’ she said, patting her own stomach.

  I looked at her narrow, bruised face, her worried expression.

  With Etienne, I suddenly thought, there would be no more chances for another child. He wouldn’t allow that to happen.

  Why hadn’t this come to me before? I had only been thinking of looking after Etienne, loving him, as he grew more ill. But now, in this bleak place, Falida had just reminded me that I would never be a mother. I would never hold my own child, watch it grow. Before I met Etienne and became pregnant, I had accepted life without a husband and children as a part of my legacy, and had never succumbed to any deep yearning or desire. But once I had experienced such a brief, tiny taste of the dream of motherhood, it was much more difficult to go back, to repress the longing.

  Standing rigidly in the dismal graveyard, I stared at Falida as she returned to her digging. Badou’s small fingers curled tightly over mine, his palm damp.

  I walked with him around the end of the grave.

  At that moment Falida let out a small cry of joy. ‘I have!’ she said, this time holding up a tooth with long, pointed double roots.

  Bile rose in my throat.

  ‘Tooth most best,’ Falida said, grinning. ‘Now my lady happy with me.’

  We went back to Sharia Zitoun together. I stopped in the woodworkers’ alley to buy Badou a small carved boat, trying to take his mind away from what he had just seen. It had been frightening and distressing for me; what was he feeling?

  When I came through the saffron gate with Falida and Badou, Manon jumped up, her mouth open. In the courtyard with her was the Frenchman, Olivier, in linen trousers but without a jacket, his white shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow. They were smoking from Manon’s sheesha, and an open bottle of cognac and two glasses were on the low table. As usual, Manon was dressed in a glorious kaftan with a diaphanous dfina overtop it, her hair arranged elaborately, her make-up perfect.

  She frowned, studying my haik as I stood with one hand on the open gate.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ she asked brusquely. ‘What are you doing in Marrakesh?’

  I didn’t answer.

  Falida handed her the basket. ‘Kneecap and tooth, lady,’ she said. ‘Good?’ she asked, hopefully.

  ‘Take it into the house,’ Manon said, too quickly, glancing at the man. He stood, picking up his jacket. ‘You don’t have to leave already, do you, Olivier?’ she said, laying her slender hand on his arm.

  He rolled down his sleeves. ‘The children are back. And besides, you have company’ he said, raising his chin at me.

  ‘She’s not welcome,’ Manon said. ‘And I can send the children out again. Say you’ll stay for just a while longer, Olivier,’ she said, her voice cloying.

  But the Frenchman shook his head. ‘I should get back to work anyway.’

  ‘When will you come again, mon cher?’

  ‘The same time next week,’ he said. As he walked towards me, I stepped out of the way to let him pass. Manon followed him, slipping her hand into his. ‘We will carry our discussion further the next time, oui?’ she asked, and he stopped, looking at her, running the back of his hand down her cheek.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, nodding, the hint of a smile on his mouth. ‘Yes.’

  As the gate closed behind him, Manon whirled to face me. ‘Why have you come? You interrupted an important conversation,’ she said. ‘There’s no reason for you to be here — here, at my home, or in Marrakesh. You’re wasting your time,’ she said, spitting out the words. ‘Allez. Go. I don’t want. you here. We have no more business.’

  Badou was running his new boat around the edge of the fountain, but watching us. I could see that the dead bird was still there. It was almost completely rotted now, its eyes eaten out, its body flat and feathers sparse.

  Manon turned and went into the house, her kaftan and dfina floating behind her.

  I left. What had I expected when I came back to Sharia Zitoun with Badou and Falida?

  There were shouts down the alley; four boys were kicking a ball against the walls.

  Badou followed me, clutching his boat as he stood beside me and stared at the boys. Two were bigger than him, one about the s
ame size, and one slightly smaller. The smaller one hung back, only occasionally aiming his foot at the ball if it came towards him.

  ‘Are they your friends?’ I asked Badou.

  He looked up at me, then shook his head. ‘I know Ali. He is six, like me. He lives there.’ He pointed at the gate across from his.

  ‘Why don’t you go and play with them?’

  ‘Maman says I mustn’t, because they’re only Arabs,’ he said, watching the boys again, and I bit my bottom lip.

  ‘She says it’s better if I help her. She says a son must always help his mother.’

  I thought of him spending his days in the house and courtyard, helping Falida and fetching things for his mother. I had never seen him with another child on Sharia Zitoun, had never seen him play with anything except his bits of string and wood, the borrowed puppy one day, and now, with the boat I’d bought him.

  ‘I am the son,’ he repeated. ‘Will you come to our house again, mademoiselle?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know, Badou. Maybe … maybe when Oncle Etienne comes back. Do you know … is he coming soon? Or has he already come to see Maman?’ I asked, lightly, but deeply ashamed of my own behaviour. Asking a small child for information. Perhaps Etienne was already here but Aszulay wasn’t aware of it, I told myself.

  ‘No,’ Badou said. ‘Now I have to go inside, or Maman will be angry.’

  ‘All right, Badou.’ On instinct, I leaned down and hugged him. He hugged me back, quickly and easily, his small arms tight around my neck.

  Now I wore kaftans and a haik and a veil at all times, quietly going about my daily shopping with my woven bag. I watched, with new eyes, the foreign women in the French Quarter, those who sat indulgently with their drinks and their cigarettes. I watched them in D’jemma el Fna or in the souks, haggling over carpets and teapots, ignoring the beggars with outstretched hands and cries of baksheesh, baksheesh: please, give.

  I realised how vulnerable these women appeared, everybody able to read their expressions, their bodies defined by their fitted clothing, the skin of their arms and legs uncovered so that, I suddenly thought, they almost appeared naked.

  Although in reality it was only weeks, it felt that it was long ago that I had been one of these women, exposed and susceptible away from the safety and familiarity of the European enclave. And suddenly it was surprisingly important that I not think of myself as such a woman, engrossed only in her own petty desires.

  On the morning that marked a month since Aszulay had said Etienne might return, I counted my money again. If I ate barely anything, I could stay perhaps two more weeks. That was all. Neither of my paintings had sold; I checked every few days. I had painted three more, but had run out of paper and some paint colours, and couldn’t afford to buy any more.

  But Etienne was expected any day. And then everything would be all right.

  As usual, on this morning I went down to the splintered hotel counter and asked if there were any messages for me. The man who was most often behind the counter — there were three or four who worked there — glanced at the boxes behind him, then shook his head. ‘Not today,’ he said, as he or the others always said, and I nodded.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, but before I could leave he said, ‘Mademoiselle,’ and his cheeks slightly reddened. ‘I know you are American. But the other guests …’ He stopped. ‘Some have mentioned to me that they stay here because it is a hotel for visitors to Marrakesh. Visitors from France, from Germany, from Spain and Britain. Also from America, like you.’

  I waited.

  Perspiration gleamed on the man’s forehead. ‘I’m sorry, mademoiselle. It’s not suitable that you dress as a Muslim woman while staying here. It is unsettling for the others. There have been complaints, you understand. If you insist on dressing in this way, I will have to ask you to leave the hotel.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said, blinking, then turned and went out into the hot sunshine.

  Aszulay was there, standing on the street in front of the hotel, in his blue robes, the bottom of his face covered by the end of his turban. He was looking down the street, so I saw his partly obscured profile, and I caught my breath.

  TWENTY EIGHT

  I approached him. My breathlessness was, surely, because seeing him meant he had news of Etienne.

  At the sound of my footsteps, he glanced at me, then turned away.

  I said his name, and he looked at me again, then said something in Arabic, his tone questioning.

  I pulled my veil from my nose and mouth, and he drew back, just the slightest. ‘Mademoiselle O’Shea,’ he said, his voice muffled. Then he said, ‘But why are you—’

  ‘Have you news, then? News of Etienne? Has he arrived?’

  ‘Manon has had a letter,’ he said, pushing down the bottom of his turban, uncovering his lower face as I had. I’d forgotten how white his teeth were. His skin had grown darker from working in the intense summer sun, making his eyes appear even bluer.

  I stepped closer. ‘A letter from Etienne?’

  He nodded. ‘It arrived yesterday.’

  I waited, but by his expression I knew, before he said it, what he would tell me. ‘I’m sorry. He wrote to say he couldn’t come this week. Perhaps in a few weeks, another month, the letter said.’

  I swallowed. Another few weeks, a month. I couldn’t stay that long; I didn’t have enough money. ‘But then …’ I said, the thought swooping in quickly. ‘The postmark … it will tell the city, or surely … surely he told Manon his address, so she could get in touch with him. It makes sense, Aszulay,’ I said, looking up at him. ‘It makes sense. I could go to him, then, wherever he is in Morocco. I don’t have to wait for him here.’

  Aszulay was watching me without speaking.

  ‘Did he say where he was?’ I asked. ‘Did the envelope—’

  ‘She didn’t show it to me, Sidonie,’ he said. ‘She only told me he wasn’t coming yet, not for a few more weeks or a month.’

  ‘But I’ll go to her and ask her. Or no, you go, she’ll tell you if you ask. She won’t tell me, Aszulay, but she’ll tell you.’

  He shook his head. ‘She’s not here right now,’ he said, and suddenly the air was too hot, the sun a white, burning disc on my face.

  ‘She’s not here?’ I repeated. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s gone on a holiday. For a week, maybe two, with …’ he stopped, then continued, ‘a friend.’

  I knew that Manon had gone off with the Frenchman Olivier. Surely Aszulay knew as well.

  ‘Did she take Badou?’ I couldn’t look at him, but stared at a tile on the wall behind him.

  ‘No. She left him with Falida.’

  ‘She’s only a girl,’ I said. ‘They’re just children.’

  ‘She’s eleven. She could marry in two or three years,’ he said. ‘I’ll go to Sharia Zitoun every few days, to bring them food and make sure they’re all right,’ he added.

  I nodded, pulling my haik around my face to block out the sun’s rays. Not only had Manon gone off with another man, but she expected Aszulay to check on her child. Had she no conscience at all? And did Aszulay have no backbone?

  I looked at him now. I knew he was a man of dignity, of honesty. How could he allow Manon to use him like this? How could he continue to be with her when she showed him so little respect? He didn’t deserve to be treated in this way.

  ‘So you will continue to wait?’ Aszulay said, something odd in his voice. ‘You’ll stay in Marrakesh and wait for him — for Etienne — no matter how long it takes?’

  I licked my lips. ‘I …’ I stopped, embarrassed to say I didn’t know how I would manage it. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sidonie, I think … maybe you shouldn’t wait any longer. Maybe you should return to your life.’

  ‘My life?’ He still didn’t understand. But how could he? How could he understand there was nothing for me in Albany? Suddenly I was angry at him, at Aszulay, for telling me I shouldn’t wait. I was angry with Manon, for thwarting my eff
orts to find Etienne. And perhaps I was the most angry with Etienne.

  I was so hot, and I was hungry; I hadn’t eaten anything since the day before. ‘As you’ll wait?’ I said to him, my voice louder, stronger. I stared into his eyes.

  He shook his head the slightest. ‘Wait for what?’

  ‘For her. For Manon.’ I couldn’t keep the venom out of my voice as I spoke her name. ‘You’ll wait for her, doing her bidding, while she’s off with another man?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s for the child,’ he said, as if surprised, but this didn’t satisfy me.

  ‘I can tell you think I’m a fool to wait for Etienne to come back to me,’ I said. ‘Go ahead. Tell me you think I’m a fool. And then I’ll tell you that I think you’re a fool to wait for Manon. She’s only using you to look after her son. How can you allow her to do that to you?’ I didn’t want to say these things; Aszulay had been nothing but kind to me. What was wrong with me? Why did I care how Manon treated him? Why was I annoyed that he cared so much for her?

  His nostrils tightened. ‘Perhaps the same way you allow Etienne to do what he does to you.’

  We stared at each other. His words stung me. What Etienne was doing to me. And then suddenly I couldn’t look at him any longer, and put my head down, as if shielding my face from the sun. Instead of shaming him, as I tried to do, he’d shamed me. Suddenly I realised how he must see me, waiting endlessly for a man who … I was dizzy. The sun was too bright; it was making everything too clear; too transparent.

  Still looking down, I said, ‘I’m sorry, Aszulay. I don’t have a right to tell you what to do. I’m sorry,’ I repeated. ‘I’m … I’m upset. All this waiting. And now …’

  ‘I understand,’ he said, and I looked at him again. Did he? His voice was a little stiff, as was his expression.

  ‘There’s something else,’ I said then, because I knew that once he walked away from me I didn’t know when I’d see him again. Now I knew I would have to make another change in order to stay in Marrakesh.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I need to find a place to stay. I …I will no longer stay at the hotel. I wonder … could you help me?’