The Saffron Gate

by Holeman, Linda

  Eventually Zohra returned with a pot of warm water. She gestured for me to stand, but I was embarrassed; because of my leg I couldn’t get up without using my hands to push myself off the ground, and I didn’t want to spoil their design. One of the women said something to another, and then came behind me and put her hands under my armpits and rather unceremoniously helped to haul me up. I smiled, in a kind of grimace, at my awkwardness, but the woman smiled openly at me, saying something in a friendly tone.

  The paste had turned black, and as Zohra gently washed and peeled it away, the designs, dark reddish-brown and delicate, emerged. I held out my hands, turning them over and admiring them.

  ‘C’est magnifique, Zohra,’ I said, and she smiled proudly, then gestured again, this time for me to come with her and eat, saying, ‘Manger, manger.’

  The whole village and their guests were now gathering around the fire. Badou appeared with the older girl, and sat beside me; Zohra and her two daughters sat on my other side. I didn’t see Aszulay; surely he was with his wife, I told myself.

  One of the older women briskly stirred the pot, and then, with a huge metal lifter, pulled out a large goat’s head. I thought of the heads I had seen in D’jemma el Fna. I didn’t think I would be able to eat it.

  Bowls of warm water were passed among us by little girls, and we washed our hands, drying them on the strips of cloth tied around the girls’ waists.

  I watched the spectacle of more heads taken from the water and set on large brass trays, and then the stripping of the soft, meaty skulls. At least there were no eyeballs. As the women pulled off steaming, pale yellow meat, they seasoned it with what looked like salt and crunchy paprika. They passed out smaller, earthen dishes of the meat, accompanied by cooked lentils and rice. I took my plate; I saw that the children ate from their mother’s plates, and so picked up a few shreds of the meat and blew on them, as I noticed the other women doing, and then put them into Badou’s mouth. He chewed obediently, then opened his mouth for more, reminding me of a baby bird. I put the plate on my lap and gestured for him to help himself, and then, taking a deep breath, put a small sliver of the meat into my own mouth. It was salty and a bit stringy but surprisingly unobjectionable; I couldn’t liken the taste to anything in particular, but it had an interesting flavour. Badou and I ate all the meat and lentils and rice on our plate, and then finished off the meal, as everywhere throughout Morocco, with sweet mint tea. The sun suddenly dropped behind the mountains, and as the sky darkened and the air cooled, the fire grew brighter and higher.

  I hadn’t noticed when Aszulay returned, but as the women collected the empty plates, I saw him sitting with some other men. Like a few others, he held a long instrument that looked like a flute or fife.

  I was glad he was back.

  I looked at the women around me. Their thoughts were of the rhythms of the seasons, and how those seasons would affect their lives — if there was drought or too much rain, if their animals were healthy. They carried the fear of whether they could feed their children, or if they would have to hear them crying in hunger, or watch them die from simple illnesses.

  I wanted to think I could be like them, strong and capable.

  I thought of how far I had come, and the decisions I had made.

  Badou got up and ran to Aszulay, settling beside him. One man beat a steady, slow rhythm on an hourglass-shaped clay drum, its top covered with what looked to be stretched and oiled goatskin, which he held between his legs. Others clapped their hands in a variety of syncopations. And then Aszulay and the other men put their flutes to their mouths and played, the melodic notes a sad lament.

  I watched my own hands as I joined in the clapping. They looked beautiful, as if I wore rosy lace gloves. I clapped and clapped, moving my shoulders to the beat, wishing I knew the words to the songs the rest of the village sang. Their voices, some harmonious and sure, others wavering and off-key, rose into the sky, slowly filling with stars. The fire sent sparks shooting into the darkness.

  Aszulay put the mouthpiece of his flute to Badou’s lips, and encouraged him to try. Badou’s cheeks puffed up as he blew, and Aszulay held the boy’s fingers over two of the holes.

  The music stopped, and women served more tea. There were conversations all around me. Badou left Aszulay and again sat beside me, leaning his head against my arm. Then slowly a drum-beat started, and then another. One man warmed his drum over the fire, testing it, and I realised that the heat on the goatskin would change its pitch. Others took up their flutes again, but this time the music was not the former rather sonorous tunes, but a lively, rhythmic beat. Some of the men rose; Aszulay did as well, his forehead and lower face covered by the folds of his dark blue turban.

  They danced to the music then, whirling with each other, their robes flying out like dervishes. The women and children watched, clapping and making sounds with their mouths: a clicking and humming from their throats, and a strange high, continuous vibrating with their tongues. The men danced and danced; the fire grew higher, and above the stars pulsed.

  I closed my eyes, letting the sound wash through me. I had the same sensation as walking home from the hammam, that my body was somehow not my own, but light and quick, unfettered by my heavy shoes. I wanted to get up and whirl among the Berber men; I felt the rhythm and beat within me, and I moved my upper body back and forth, making my own sounds with my mouth, clapping my hands.

  I opened my eyes. Everyone was absorbed in the joy of the night and the music and the dance. As was I.

  And suddenly I saw myself, as if from afar, a woman in Moroccan dress, eating the food of the land, sitting around a fire under the North African sky and clapping my hennaed hands. I understood what it was to love, and to grieve over losing those who meant the most. To feel joy and to feel pain.

  I understood life, whether it was in Albany or in Africa.

  I closed my eyes again, turning my face to the sky and letting joy wash over me.

  When I opened my eyes, a woman I hadn’t seen before sat beside Aszulay. He was looking at her tattooed face, speaking intently, nodding, and she answered, and whatever she said made him throw back his head and laugh in a way I had never before witnessed: joyful, and full of life.

  The woman was young and attractive in the bold, nomad way, her hair loosely braided, with a number of silver necklaces against her dark skin, her slender wrists covered in bangles. She laughed with Aszulay, taking the flute from him and putting it to her lips. I watched them across the fire, the heat casting wavering shadows on their faces.

  Here she was then: Aszulay’s wife.

  And suddenly I was overwhelmed, dismayed and confused by my own feelings. I couldn’t bear to watch them together, and yet I couldn’t look away.

  The sensations of only moments before fled, and somehow, the beautiful evening was now spoiled.

  I wanted to be sitting beside Aszulay. I wanted to make him laugh the way his wife did. I had never said anything clever or witty to him. All I had done was force him to be serious, to help me. To look after me, as he looked after Badou.

  THIRTY FOUR

  Badou, like most of the other, younger children, had fallen asleep, curled in the cooling dust at my side. Zohra picked up her own sleeping daughter and motioned to me. I got to my feet and lifted Badou; he was limp and surprisingly heavy. I slowly followed Zohra; it was difficult to walk over the rough ground carrying him. The sky was alight with stars, and a new moon lay on its back.

  As we went towards a tent, Zohra stopped, pointing to a small constellation that looked like a kite with a tail. She said something in Tamazight; I shook my head. She closed her eyes, concentrating, then opened them and said, ‘La croix.’

  ‘The cross?’

  She nodded, and I remembered the prediction of Mohammed and his monkey, Hasi. Mohammed had spouted clichés about finding something under the Southern Cross, most likely, I had thought at the time, the same story he told every foreign woman foolish enough to part with a sou or two. And yet
, standing beneath the pulsing sky, it was suddenly important that I remember his exact words. Under the Southern Cross you will understand that what you look for may take a different shape. You may not recognise it… and then something about djinns.

  Badou stirred against me, and, still looking at the Southern Cross, I held him tighter. His little body, even in the cool evening air, was so warm, and he smelled like the earth. I thought of Aszulay eating a pinch of red earth.

  I looked away from the sky and down at Badou.

  His bare feet were covered in dried mud from the river bank — where were his babouches? — and his face was content. He turned his head so that his nose pressed against my shoulder.

  Zohra pulled aside a tent flap. Here a number of children lay asleep on piles of rugs and skins. A few coughed; the air in the tent was warm from all the bodies. An older woman sat in a corner, a decorated shawl wrapped around her as she watched over the sleeping children. Zohra laid her daughter down, and motioned for me to put Badou beside her. Then she pulled a rug tightly around them both. Badou murmured something. I leaned closer; again, he spoke, in a mixture of French and Arabic. I only understood le chien, dog. And then he was silent, his breathing deep and even.

  I followed Zohra back to the fire. The air was cold now, and I shivered, crossing my arms over my chest. When I sat down, relishing the heat of the fire, I again saw Aszulay, now speaking earnestly to another man. The woman was no longer beside him, and although I knew he would join her later, the fact that he hadn’t rushed off to be with her made me feel better.

  What was wrong with me?

  He had removed his turban, and in the firelight I saw that his forehead and the sides of his face were banded in a shadowy hue; his skin, heated from dancing, had pulled the colour from his turban. Suddenly I wanted to breathe in the scent of his face. He would smell of woodsmoke, and indigo.

  I understood then that Aszulay would always be thus: a combination of what he had been and who he was now. Whether speaking his lovely, formal French, or Arabic or the complex twist of Tamazight, whether dressed in white, holding a spade in Monsieur Majorelle’s garden, or driving a truck along the piste in blue, he was both sides of a coin. Distinguishable from each other and yet incapable of splitting.

  In a while, Zohra again stood, motioning to me, and I picked up my bag and followed her. She carried a small burning torch, but even with the moon and the carnival of stars above us, it was difficult to see. She stopped, looking back at me and holding out her hand. I took it, gratefully, and we walked around the fire. As we passed the men, Aszulay looked up at me.

  I looked back at him, and something in his face made me open my mouth as if I couldn’t get enough air. It wasn’t a quick glance, and it wasn’t with the dancing light as when he laughed with his wife. It was something different, something deep and mesmerising, and it made me dizzy, as if the fever of a few days earlier had returned. I stumbled on a root, and Zohra stopped, holding me upright. As I fell back into step with her, the moment had passed, and I didn’t have the nerve to look back at Aszulay again.

  In a few moments a form loomed in front of me. When Zohra ducked her head, I did the same. We stood inside one of the tents, where what looked, in the wavering light of the torch, like shadowy piles of skins covered with rough blankets were tightly packed together. Some forms lay still, as if deep in sleep. From a corner came girlish whispers and giggles; certainly this was a tent for unmarried women. Zohra led me to one of the piles of skins and left. I clutched my bag, which I’d carefully packed in Marrakesh, but knew it was far too cold to undress and put on my light nightdress. I simply took off my shoes and got under the blanket in my kaftan. The other girls were quiet now, their breathing deep and even. The young woman beside me pushed closer, her back against my chest. I had seen this type of closeness all over Morocco. Men crushed into each other in the square and the souks; Mena and Nawar and the old servant sat closely together on the roof, their shoulders and hips touching as they worked. I thought of the way the women in the hammam washed and massaged each other. Perhaps the closeness and bodily warmth produced a sense of belonging. Even little Badou wanted to be close, constantly climbing into his mother’s or Aszulay’s or my lap.

  The Europeans and British and Americans in North Africa were the opposite of this. We each kept our polite space; we apologised over an accidental touch.

  Lying there in the utter darkness, I heard the murmur of the men still around the fire, and the far-off bleating of a goat. The girl nestled more tightly against me. She smelled of cooking oil and perspiration and something else, an unidentifiable spice. I tried to still my mind, but it was alive, whirling with what I had experienced under the night sky. With the way Aszulay had looked at me. I thought of him going up the terraced walk into one of the mud houses, lifting a rug or skin and lying beside his wife. Thoughts of her turning to him, of him wrapping his arms around her, came to me, and I put my own arm over my eyes, not wanting to visualise such things.

  But, just as unbidden, now visions of Etienne, beside me in my bed on Juniper Road, flooded my head. I had known one man in my life, for such a brief time. At the memories of what it felt like to have a man’s body against mine, I grew too warm, and, at the same time, was overcome with loneliness and yearning.

  I turned on to my side, my back against the girl’s, trying to find comfort on the hard bed, and wishing for sleep so that I could escape from the unexpected desires of my body.

  Etienne. What was I feeling for him now, knowing what I knew? What would my life have been if he’d stayed with me in Albany, and had married me? What would my life have been if I hadn’t lost the baby, and had one day been a mother?

  What would my life have been if I had never come to Morocco?

  But then … didn’t I still wish that Etienne would marry me? Once he returned to Marrakesh, and I convinced him that his illness wouldn’t stop me from loving him, he would surely agree to marry me.

  I tried to remember how it felt to make love with Etienne.

  But instead, my thoughts went to Aszulay and his wife.

  What it would be like to make love with Aszulay. His sensitive mouth. His hands.

  I couldn’t sleep. I got up and pulled a heavy blanket from the bed. I wrapped it around my shoulders and went out into the night air.

  The fire had died down, although it was still glowing. Without its high flames or the flares of torches, it was easier to see in the starlit night. My feet bare, I limped only a few feet from my tent, afraid I would become lost if I went further. The air cooled my body, and I drew deep breaths. And then I realised that there was a single figure still sitting in front of the fire.

  Did I simply want it to be Aszulay, or was it really him? He sat in the place I had last seen Aszulay, but that didn’t mean anything. Did I only imagine I recognised the set of his shoulders, the length of his hair? As I watched, the man wrapped himself in a blanket, and lay down by the glowing embers.

  I returned to my tent, somehow comforted. It was wrong to feel pleasure at thinking that perhaps Aszulay didn’t wish to be with his wife. And yet there it was.

  I was glad.

  I awoke at some point in the night, stiff and cold. I heard snuffling — a camel, a goat, a dog; what was it? — along the outside wall of the tent. Perhaps that was what woke me. I shivered, clenching my teeth to keep them still, and from the cold and the tea my bladder was uncomfortable. But I couldn’t bear to get out of bed and leave the tent to crouch in the dust behind it. I pressed closer to the girl beside me for warmth; her slightly huffy breathing halted, and she sat up and coughed. And then, so unexpectedly that I didn’t even have time to wonder at it, there was a rush of air and an animal smell and a heavy weight was placed upon me. Immediately I felt warmer. There was more rustling, and the girl snuggled against me, her rhythmic breathing resuming in minutes.

  I was awakened, warm and relaxed, by the flap of the rug over the doorway pulled back so that clear morning light flooded into t
he tent. There was a large goatskin over my blanket, and although the girl beside me was gone, I was grateful to her for covering me when she felt me shivering in the night.

  Outside the tent, women sat around a large brass kettle and a tin pan, taking turns pouring fresh water into the pan from the kettle, splashing the water over their faces. I did the same; then one of the women produced a tiny mirror and handed it to me. I thanked her with a smile, holding it up and then frowning and shaking my head at my wild reflection. Rabia came up behind me and, on her knees, combed through my hair, then braided it with fingers swift as swallows. She made one long braid, securing it with something. I reached back to feel it, pulling it over my shoulder and seeing the braid was tied with a twist of goat hair.

  Then she came in front of me, again kneeling, and held up a long, thin stick, gesturing towards her eyes, and then mine. Kohl. She wanted to line my eyes with kohl. I had never worn any form of make-up, but I nodded.

  She held my chin with her left hand and outlined my eyes with the stick she held in her right. When she was done, she nodded, again smiling.

  I followed her up the footpath to the house where she and her mother and sister and their husbands and children lived. When I entered the one windowless room, the only light coming through the open doorway, it was difficult to see. I smelled something meaty, and there was the sizzle from a pan over heat.

  I eventually made out piles of carpets with beautiful Berber designs covering the walls and floor; more were stacked in one corner to be used as beds. I recognised the design on my hands in one of the weavings. In the middle of the floor was a fire enclosed by stones, and a chimney made of pipe led out of an opening in the roof. The men must have left; there was only Aszulay’s mother and Zohra, and a number of children of different ages. Aszulay’s mother squatted on the floor next to a cluster of pots, stirring one of them.