The Saffron Gate

by Holeman, Linda

  He nodded, studying the boot. ‘Brahim, the boy down the street, also has a short leg. But he can still run fast, and kick the ball.’ He put his head to one side. ‘You look like Maman,’ he said.

  ‘Really,’ I said, trying not to let him see that his statement unnerved me. Manon was earthy, and beautiful.

  ‘Oui,’ he said, seriously. ‘Yes. You look like Maman. Oncle Aszulay!’ he called. ‘Sidonie looks like Maman now.’

  Aszulay had been extinguishing the fire with earth. He glanced at me, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. ‘Come. We’re ready to go,’ he called back.

  As Badou clambered into the cab of the truck, and Aszulay slid in behind the wheel, I stopped, my hand on the passenger door. ‘Aszulay,’ I said. ‘Could I drive the truck back to Marrakesh?’

  ‘But … you told me about the accident. With your father. You said …’

  ‘I know. But I feel differently today,’ I said. ‘Today I think it’s time for me to drive again.’

  ‘You have forgiven yourself,’ he said, and I blinked. Was he right? Did I want to drive — not just myself, like those few reckless moments on the piste when I roared off in Mustapha’s car, but with Aszulay and Badou — because I no longer felt the unbearable weight of what had happened the last time I drove with someone I loved? I thought of my father, and for the first time there was no deep pain. Perhaps Aszulay was right. Perhaps I had found peace.

  ‘A truck is not like driving a car,’ Aszulay said, when I didn’t respond. ‘And as I said last night, the pistes will be covered in places. It won’t be easy.’

  ‘Probably not. But I can try. I’m sure you’ll help me if I have trouble.’ I lifted my chin and smiled at him.

  He left the driver’s side and came to stand beside me. ‘Well. It appears I am to be driven through the bled by an American woman. Well,’ he repeated, as if a little unsure, or perhaps a little pleased. Then he grinned at me, and ducked his head and looked into the cab. ‘I think this will be a good experience. What do you think, eh, Badou? Will you like Sidonie driving us? We can sit back, and let her do the work.’

  ‘Oui,’ Badou said, seriously. ‘Sidonie can do the work.’

  I got behind the wheel and placed my feet on the pedals and my hands on the steering wheel. I turned the key, and when the engine roared to life, I looked at Aszulay and smiled. He smiled back.

  We were back in Marrakesh just after noon, leaving the truck in the garage on the outskirts of the city. It had definitely been a difficult drive, but I had managed, only once slipping off the piste, but immediately redirecting the car and getting back on the narrow track. I let Badou honk the horn in the stillness of the empty bled, and he laughed over and over.

  We walked in to the medina, but instead of taking me directly back to Sharia Soura, Aszulay took us down another alley, and then another, and I realised, when we stopped and he took a large metal key from inside the folds of his blue robe, that we were at his home.

  As he unlocked the gate and pushed it open, the elderly woman who had served me tea the last time rose from the tiled courtyard, a rag in her hand. Her kaftan was looped up over her belt so she could work. Aszulay spoke to her in Arabic, and she nodded and went, into the house, pulling down her kaftan, and Aszulay followed her.

  Holding Badou’s hand, I looked around, realising that when I had come here the first time, questioning Aszulay about Etienne, I hadn’t had the presence of mind to clearly see Aszulay’s dar. But this time was different. I wanted to see everything. The courtyard was lovely, its floor a design of small diamond-shaped tiles in shades of blue and gold. The outside wall of the house was tiled too; here were different designs in gold and green and red. Small niches — also tiled — had candles set into them. The doorway into the house was arched, and a thin white curtain fluttered over it. Painted pots that reminded me of those in Monsieur Majorelle’s garden sat at various angles; some huge ones held small trees, and clusters of smaller ones were planted with flowers and vines.

  On one of the walls was a long mirror, and from another hung a rug with a distinct weave and abstract design. Its colours ranged from subtle earth tones to brilliant yellows and golds.

  Having just come from the village of earth, clinging to the side of a hill, I saw the difference between Aszulay’s life here, in Marrakesh, and what his life would have been in the Ourika valley.

  Badou pulled his hand from mine and ran about the courtyard. I took off my haik and veil as Aszulay came out with a large tin tub, the kind the servant at Sharia Soura used to wash clothes in the courtyard. He filled the tub with water from a cistern in one corner as he spoke to Badou in Arabic. Suddenly he stopped. ‘I’m sorry. Sometimes after I have been in the bled I forget to speak en français.’

  ‘That’s all right: I can understand more Arabic now anyway. I understood you, telling Badou he smelled like a little puppy and must have a bath. Mena is teaching me,’ I said.

  Aszulay bent over the tub and washed his face and neck and hands with a hard bar of soap. He splashed water over his hair, running his fingers through it. He pushed up the sleeves of his robe and washed his arms to the elbow. Then he emptied the tub into a shallow depression near the cistern and filled the tub again.

  ‘Come, Badou,’ he said, pulling off Badou’s djellaba and cotton pants and babouches and lifting him into the tub. He splashed water over the little boy, and Badou smiled.

  ‘The water is warm from the sun,’ Aszulay said, using a cloth and the soap to wash away the grime. ‘Close your eyes, Badou,’ he said, and lathered and then rinsed Badou’s hair.

  I looked around the sun-dappled courtyard, at the beautiful tiles, and suddenly I wanted to feel them. I undid the laces of my shoes and slipped them off. Then my stockings. The tiles were, as I had imagined, warm and smooth. They were spotless from the servant’s recent cleaning. I walked slowly around the courtyard, knowing I was hobbling deeply without my boot, but not caring. I walked, revelling in the joy of my bare feet on the beautiful tiles. I hadn’t walked outside without my shoes since before the polio, when I had often run about the yard barefoot in summer.

  Aszulay and Badou paid no attention, caught up in Badou’s bath. And then I saw my reflection in the long mirror. I could see my whole body. The sun and wind, in the last three days, had darkened my skin further. My hair, neatly braided by Aszulay’s sister before we’d left their camp, had, after the wind and our overnight stay in the truck, come undone and hung over my shoulders. My eyes, still ringed with the now smeared kohl, stood out, larger than I’d ever seen. The decorated shawl Aszulay’s mother had given me was draped over my kaftan. I stared at myself, from my hair to my bare feet, understanding what Badou had said. I looked, from this distance, surprisingly like Manon. A similar oval face, the same wide dark eyes and curling hair. I had never seen it before.

  ‘The tiles and designs are glorious,’ I said, looking from my reflection to Aszulay. The tiles in Manon’s courtyard, and in Mena’s, were much more pedestrian: pretty, but a limited design, and more subdued colours.

  ‘There are many traditional patterns of zellij — the tiles,’ Aszulay said, looking from Badou to me. His eyes took in my feet, staring at them for just an instant, but in that brief second I felt as though I had exposed my naked breasts. My breath caught in my throat; there was a strange eroticism — for me — in Aszulay seeing my feet.

  I had never let Etienne see them. We had only been intimate from the fall into the winter, and I always wore stockings. When we were in bed, I kept my bare feet under the covers, making sure to put on my stockings before getting out of bed.

  I thought of the way Aszulay had held Badou’s feet the night before.

  ‘What’s this one?’ I asked, quickly turning, pointing to one of the black and white designs.

  ‘Hen’s teeth,’ he said, and at that Badou laughed.

  ‘Hens don’t have teeth, Oncle Aszulay.’

  ‘And this series of round ones?’ I asked.

  He a
gain looked away from Badou. ‘That is little tambourine. The rows above are divided tears.’

  ‘What does divided mean?’ Badou asked.

  Aszulay didn’t answer:

  ‘When one thing is made into two,’ I said. I thought about Aszulay, and how I had seen both sides of him: the desert man and the city man.

  Badou shivered, and Aszulay lifted him from the tub, wrapping him in a long piece of flannel, patting him to dry his skin and combing through his wet hair with his fingers. He slapped the dust from the little boy’s djellaba and pants and wiped off his babouches with a damp edge of the flannel. As I watched him fit the shoes back on to Badou’s feet, I envisioned him tending to his own children.

  ‘Now you look fine, and Maman will not be angry,’ he said, and Badou nodded without smiling.

  ‘Can I stay here longer, at your house, Oncle Aszulay?’ he asked. ‘I don’t want to go. Sidonie can stay too.’

  Aszulay shook his head. ‘You must go to Maman, Badou. And we also must take Sidonie home,’ he said. Home. I knew he only meant the word in the literal sense, and yet it made me think. Was my low room under the African stars now my home?

  He dumped out the water, but filled the tub for a third time. ‘Come,’ he said to me, and I stared at him. ‘Your feet,’ he said. ‘The water will feel good on your feet.’

  I went to the tub. Bunching my kaftan at my knees with one hand, and putting the other on Aszulay’s arm, I stepped over the rim of the tub. The water was warm, as he had said. I wiggled my toes, smiling at him. He pulled a low stool to the edge of the tub. Then he picked up the bar of soap. I knew what he was going to do.

  I put my hand on his shoulder, to steady myself, while he gently lifted my right foot and washed it, up to my ankle. Then he put it down, and as he began to lift my left foot, I had to hold tighter to his shoulder, to keep myself steady while balancing on the shortened right leg. His shoulder, under my hand, was strong and hard. I let my fingers hold on to him for the extra few seconds when he had finished washing my left foot and I stood with both feet on the bottom of the tub.

  Then he took my hand as I stepped out, and gestured for me to sit on the stool. He crouched in front of me and took my feet, one at a time, and dried them.

  ‘Bring Sidonie’s stockings and shoes,’ he said to Badou, and the boy ran to pick them up and bring them to Aszulay.

  Aszulay put on my stockings, and then my shoes, lacing them. The whole time I watched the top of his head as he bent over my feet. I wanted to reach out and touch his hair, run my hand down the back of his head, touch the edges of his ears, his neck.

  I kept my hands folded together in my lap until he was done.

  We were passing through a small, busy souk not far from Sharia Soura. Aszulay and I walked side by side, while Badou was a few feet ahead of us. I was aware of Aszulay’s blue sleeve brushing mine occasionally. I glanced up at him. What did I want him to say? I knew he felt what I felt. I knew he wanted me as I wanted him.

  ‘I have three canvases to work on this week,’ I finally said, breaking the comfortable silence. ‘I took one of my oils to the hotel, and they said they’d take it on consignment, as well as more watercolours.’ I smiled up at him, but he was silent, staring straight ahead as if concentrating on something else.

  ‘Aszulay?’ I said, and when still he didn’t turn to me, I followed his gaze.

  A dark-haired man, his shoulders gaunt and curved under his linen jacket, turned a corner ahead of us. I had only time to catch a glimpse of his pale profile. But I knew. This time I knew. It wasn’t like all the other times I had thought I’d seen Etienne in Marrakesh.

  I stopped for one instant, and then, dropping my bag, pushed through the throngs in the square, turning the corner where he had been, but here was a wide street, lined with markets, teeming with people and animals.

  ‘Etienne,’ I shouted into the swarming milieu. I snatched my veil from my face so that my voice was clearer. ‘Etienne!’ Heads closest to me turned, but I couldn’t see Etienne. I worked my way through the crowds, calling his name, but my voice was lost, blending in to the rest of the clamour. Panting, I finally stopped in the middle of the street, my hands at my sides, staring at the sea of people and animals milling around me. Alleys ran off this street in all directions; Etienne could have gone down any of them.

  Aszulay touched my arm. I looked up at him. ‘It was Etienne,’ I said. ‘You saw him. I know you did. He’s here, Aszulay. He’s in Marrakesh.’

  He pulled my arm, leading me away so that we were standing under the shaded overhang of a locked gate, where the noise wasn’t so intense. ‘Badou,’ he said, reaching into the folds of his robe and pulling out a few coins, ‘please go and buy bread. From the stall, there,’ he said, pointing.

  Badou took the money and ran off.

  ‘I must tell you something,’ Aszulay said. I absently noticed that he had my bag over his shoulder.

  I nodded, thinking only of Etienne. He was here, in Marrakesh.

  ‘When I came to get you, on our way to the countryside …’ Aszulay hesitated. ‘I should have spoken of it, even though you asked me not to. Sidonie. Look at me. Please.’

  I was still staring into the street. ‘Spoken about what?’ I asked, turning towards him.

  ‘At Manon’s, when I went to pick up Badou just before I came to you,’ he glanced at Badou, waiting for the bread, ‘Etienne was there.’

  He said the final three words in a rush. I opened my mouth, then closed it.

  ‘I should have told you,’ he said. ‘Even though you asked me not to speak of Manon, and Sharia Zitoun, I should have told you.’

  I leaned against the gate. ‘Etienne is at Manon’s?’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘And I didn’t tell you because …’

  I waited, watching his mouth.

  ‘Because I wished you to come to the bled with us. With me. I knew that if I told you Etienne was here, you wouldn’t come. And … and something else.’

  Still I stood there. When he didn’t speak, I said, in a quiet voice, ‘What else?’

  ‘I didn’t want you to go and face Manon and Etienne by yourself. I didn’t want to leave Marrakesh, knowing …’

  ‘Knowing…?’

  But Badou came running back then, the round of bread under his arm.

  I looked down at the boy, who glanced from me to Aszulay.

  ‘Does he know? Does he know I’m here?’ I asked Aszulay.

  Aszulay nodded.

  ‘But he doesn’t know where I am.’ I stated it, rather than asked it.

  Again Aszulay nodded.

  ‘You didn’t tell him.’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘But… if he knew I was here, he must have asked you, or Manon, about me, how I was. Where I was. Wouldn’t he have tried to find me, over these last few days?’

  Again, Aszulay didn’t appear to have an answer. I had never seen him like this.

  ‘Aszulay. Has he been looking for me?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sidonie.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I speak the truth. I don’t know.’

  ‘Let’s go, Oncle Aszulay,’ Badou said. ‘I have the bread for Maman.’

  ‘You should have told me,’ I said to Aszulay ignoring Badou. ‘You let me go off with you, knowing, all along, that this — that Etienne — was the reason I was in Marrakesh. And yet you … you betrayed me, Aszulay.’ My voice had risen.

  ‘No, Sidonie. I didn’t betray you.’ Aszulay’s voice was low, and his face held something. Perhaps anguish. ‘I … I wished to protect you.’

  I pulled at my bag, and he slid it off his arm. ‘Protect me from what?’ I said, louder than necessary, then I slung the bag over my shoulder and turned sharply, walking alone back to Sharia Soura.

  I went to my room and lay on the bed. Etienne was here; I could be facing him within the hour, if I so wished. But why did I feel more a sense of dread than excitement? As I’d just told Aszulay, this was why I’d come to Marrakesh. This was why I�
�d waited all this time. Why was I so angry at Aszulay? Was it really anger, or was it something else?

  I rose and looked at myself in the mirror.

  Again I saw how I resembled Manon.

  Now everything was different. It was so complicated. What had just unfolded between Aszulay and me …

  I couldn’t go to Sharia Zitoun just yet. I needed a little more time, one more night, to prepare myself to see Etienne.

  Of course I was unable to sleep at all. My thoughts went from Aszulay’s kiss, his touch on my feet, to Etienne, and what I would say to him. What he would say to me.

  I tossed through the endless night, and was glad to finally hear the morning prayer. I bathed in the tub in my room, washing my hair. I pulled my best dress — the green silk with cap sleeves — from my case and put it on. I brushed my damp hair back into its usual style, pinning it firmly, and studied myself in the long mirror.

  The dress was all wrong; wrinkled badly and hanging oddly on me. Although I could never appear pale with my darkened skin, there was a drawn look about me, as though I had just recovered from a tiring illness. And with my hair back, my face appeared too severe, too angular.

  I sat on my bed. Then I unpinned my hair, feeling the thick waves fall over my shoulders. I took off my dress and put on a kaftan. I took my veil and haik and went downstairs. I asked Mena for her kohl, and outlined my eyes. Then I called for Najeeb, and went to Sharia Zitoun.

  THIRTY SEVEN

  I stared at the hamsa on the saffron gate. I closed my eyes and knocked.

  Within a moment Falida called out, asking who it was.

  ‘Mademoiselle O’Shea,’ I said, quietly.

  She pulled open the door. I stood there, unable to force my feet forward.

  ‘Mademoiselle?’ Falida said. ‘You come in?’

  I nodded, taking, a deep breath, and stepped into the courtyard. There were loud voices from within the house, although I couldn’t make out what was said, Badou sat on the bottom step of the outside staircase.