The Saffron Gate

by Holeman, Linda

  THIRTY NINE

  Over the next few days I did what I had told Aszulay I would do. I completed my final painting, delivering it to Monsieur Henri and collecting my payment for the others that had been sold.

  ‘Your work has become popular in such a short time, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘The owner of a gallery on Rue de la Fontaine has mentioned he would like to speak to you.’ He gave me a card. ‘You may get in touch with him at your leisure.’

  I sat in the coolness of the lobby, looking at the envelope and the printed card. Dare I think that I could sustain myself by my painting in Albany? Would I find the interest for my work there that I had here?

  But I couldn’t bear to think of Albany, and Juniper Road.

  I walked slowly back into the medina, followed, of course, by Najeeb. As we passed Sharia Zitoun, I instinctively looked, as I always did, at the niche in the wall.

  Since that first time, seeing Badou and Falida hiding there with the kittens, I had never seen them there again. But now I made out a shadowy figure.

  I went closer. It was Falida, with a small grey kitten on her lap.

  ‘Falida,’ I said, and she jumped. She looked up at me, her eyes too big in her thin face. There was something stricken about her. ‘What is it? What’s wrong, Falida?’

  Her eyes glistened. For all I had seen her mistreated by Manon, I hadn’t seen her cry. ‘I am on the street again, mademoiselle,’ she said.

  ‘Manon turned you out?’

  ‘They’re all gone.’

  ‘All gone? What do you mean?’

  ‘My lady and the man. Gone. And Badou. I don’t want to be on the street. I am too old now. It’s not good for a girl on the street. Bad things will happen to me. I’m afraid, mademoiselle.’ She put the kitten to her face, as if hiding her tears from me. But her narrow shoulders shook.

  I leaned down, putting my hand on her forearm. ‘Falida. Tell me what happened.’

  She lifted her head. Her lips were dry. I wondered when she had last eaten. ‘My lady and the men. They fight.’

  ‘Etienne? She fought with Monsieur Duverger?’

  ‘All men, mademoiselle. Monsieur Olivier and Aszulay and Monsieur Etienne. Always fighting. Badou is very sad. He is afraid. He cries and cries.’

  I licked my own lips, suddenly as dry as Falida’s. ‘But… Where did they go? And who? Was it Manon and Etienne and Badou? Did they go somewhere?’

  Falida shook her head. ‘The other one. Monsieur Olivier. He said he take my lady, but not Badou. He don’t want Badou. My lady said she give Badou to Monsieur Etienne. But Aszulay talk to Monsieur Etienne, then Monsieur Etienne fight with my lady and goes away and don’t come back. My lady … she so angry. Badou and me hide. We afraid. She bad when she angry; she hit us. We hide here, but then night comes, and I don’t know what to do. Badou hungry, cries more all the time. I take him back to my lady, she give me a paper, and bag with Badou’s clothes. She tell me take him to Aszulay, and give Aszulay paper.’

  ‘And … did you?’

  Falida nodded. ‘Aszulay not there. I leave Badou with servant: She tell me go away.’ Falida put her face against the kitten, and once more tears shone on her cheeks.

  ‘When did this happen?’ I asked.

  ‘Two nights I on street,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know how long Manon has gone for this time? With Monsieur Olivier?’ Falida shook her head.

  ‘Come with me,’ I said, and she put the kitten back into the hole in the wall and stood, and I took her hand.

  We went back to Sharia Soura, and I gave her bread and a plate of chicken and couscous, ignoring Nawar’s glares. I had the servant heat water, and after Falida had eaten, I let her bathe in my room, giving her one of my kaftans to put on. When I went to check on her, she was asleep, breathing in deep, exhausted sighs. As my room dimmed, I lay beside her on the mattress, and closed my own eyes.

  I awoke in the night. Falida was curled against me. I put my arm over her and went back to sleep.

  The next morning I combed Falida’s hair for her, braided it into two long tails, and gave her breakfast. As the day before, she was silent, her eyes downcast the whole time. Although she was so thin, I noticed the kaftan was the right length; she was already almost as tall as me. When we’d eaten breakfast, I called to Najeeb.

  ‘Can you take me to Aszulay’s house?’ I asked Falida. I wasn’t sure I could find it from Sharia Soura.

  She nodded, and with Najeeb following, we went through the medina until I recognised Aszulay’s street.

  I went to his gate and knocked.

  Aszulay opened it, Badou at his side.

  ‘Falida!’ Badou said, in a delighted voice, and grinned at me. ‘Another tooth is loose, Sidonie,’ he said, showing me one on the bottom, rocking it back and forth with his index finger.

  Falida kneeled, putting her arms around him. He hugged her quickly, then pulled away, speaking into her face, his words an excited jumble. ‘We were looking for you yesterday. Guess what? Oncle Aszulay said the next time we go to the bled I can bring back a puppy. And we’re going to teach it to fetch a stick, like Ali’s dog. And you can help us, Falida. Isn’t that right, Oncle Aszulay?’

  ‘Yes,’ Aszulay said, looking at me, not the children. He wore a simple dark blue djellaba. He didn’t smile. ‘Take Falida into the house and give her some of the melon we’ve prepared for lunch, Badou.’

  I watched the children leave the courtyard. My hands trembled slightly. I didn’t know if I could look at Aszulay, didn’t know what I’d say.

  ‘Poor things,’ I said, still in the doorway of the courtyard. ‘What’s happened? Falida said Manon went away with Olivier.’

  ‘Sidonie,’ he said, and by the way he said my name I had to look at him. ‘I didn’t know if I’d …’ He stopped, his face so still, so serious. So beautiful. I wanted to touch it.

  He glanced at Najeeb, still standing behind me. ‘Will you stay for a while? I don’t like speaking in this manner, in the doorway.’ His face was still unreadable.

  When I nodded, a tiny muscle in his cheek twitched. He spoke to Najeeb, and the boy left. Aszulay took my arm and pulled me inside, shutting the gate. I was suddenly weak, and leaned against it.

  ‘I told Etienne the truth,’ Aszulay said. ‘I went the next morning, after seeing you at Sharia Soura, and told him that Badou wasn’t his.’

  I waited, watching Aszulay’s face.

  ‘He was relieved, of course. He said he would leave the city immediately; even as an uncle, he had no real interest in the boy. He won’t be back to Marrakesh.’

  Still I said nothing.

  ‘He asked me … he wanted me to tell you that he was sorry. Sorry for the pain he caused you. And to wish you well, and to ask that you will some day forgive him.’

  I looked down. I didn’t know what to feel, didn’t want to talk about Etienne with Aszulay. We stood in silence.

  ‘And Manon?’ I finally said, when I could again look at him.

  ‘Manon finally has what she always wanted. She left me a letter. She’s arranged to have her house sold, and has gone to live in France. With Olivier. I don’t know how long he’ll be blinded by her; she has the same hold over him she has with all men, at least at the beginning. But if he proves to be like the others, he’ll tire of her moods, her demands. Before too long she will lose her appeal.’

  ‘And then she’ll return?’

  He shrugged. ‘Who knows? But there will be nothing here for her any more. Without her house, without her son, without any friends — I cannot call her a friend any longer, not after her final actions — she will not have … what is the expression? When you can no longer come home?’

  I didn’t answer his question. ‘But … Badou. Manon simply left him?’

  He looked over his shoulder, at the house. ‘In her letter she wrote that since I was so concerned about the child’s future, interfering and destroying her plan to have Etienne take Badou, now I could take responsibility for him. He w
as of no further use to her. So she discarded him, as she has done to all those who are of no further use.’

  He stood in front of me, looking down at me, and then moved closer and put his hand on my cheek, covering the old scar. ‘But of course this is not a hardship.’ He stopped. ‘I love the child.’

  I tried to think of something to say, but was too aware of his hand on my cheek, of standing so near to him. I felt the warmth of his fingers, and wondered if when he removed them they would leave a faint blue stain.

  ‘Twice I went to Sharia Soura to speak to you,’ he said. ‘Both times I was told you weren’t there.’

  ‘But Mena didn’t tell—’

  ‘They think we are incorrigible. You and I, Sidonie. They don’t approve.’ He smiled, so slightly, as he said it.

  I waited.

  ‘I am an honest man,’ he said. ‘Tuaregs abide by a code of honesty, and of bravery.’

  ‘I know,’ I whispered.

  ‘I was honest with you, the other night, when I said I understand more than you realise. I do understand what you want. That you want to stay. And since the night I came to Sharia Soura when Manon hurt you, and you held my hand against your lips, and said you thought of my hands … since that night I couldn’t hide my feelings from myself. You are different from any woman I’ve known, Sidonie.’

  I watched his mouth.

  ‘You are willing to be afraid, to accept fear, and move with it. But you also made me afraid, Sidonie. And I haven’t known this feeling for so long, and it filled me with doubt. I was afraid that if I asked you to stay with me …’

  He stopped.

  ‘Afraid of what?’ I said, or perhaps whispered.

  ‘I thought it would be easier if you said no. But if you said yes, I was afraid that in time you wouldn’t be happy, and would want your former life again. Even with your painting. With Badou and Falida, with … with children of our own. That what I have to give you won’t be enough. Our lives have been so different, so—’

  I stepped closer to him. I smelled the sweetness of melon on his lips. ‘I can see my life here, with you,’ I said.

  A bird trilled in the branches overhead.

  ‘You see it? It is enough?’ he said softly, his eyes fixed on mine.

  I waited until the bird had finished its song. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It is enough.’

  Inshallah, I thought. Inshallah.

  Acknowledgements

  I relied on a number of books for information and inspiration while writing Sidonie’s story. Women of Marrakech is Leonora Peets’ description of life as a doctor’s wife in 1930s Marrakesh. Elizabeth Warnock Fernea wrote The Streets of Marrakech after her sojourn there with her family in the 1970s. These two first-hand accounts were particularly useful. Also of importance to my understanding of the country was the small, exquisitely detailed In Morocco, written by Edith Wharton in 1919, after she travelled through Morocco with the purpose of writing its first English travel guide. Cynthia J. Becker’s Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity was infinitely enlightening.

  I also relied on information found in The Voices of Marrakech, by Elias Canetti, Morocco That Was, by Walter Harris, A Year in Marrakesh, by Peter Mayne, Caliph’s House, by Tahir Shah, The Conquest of Morocco, by Douglas Porch, and A Narrative of Travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848, by David Urquhart. Paul Bowles’ novel, The Sheltering Sky, was inspiring and revealing. I was able to unearth a wealth of glorious books depicting Morocco’s architecture and the design of its riads, the old-style houses within the medinas, with their tiled courtyards and gardens. These books gave me greater insight into the beauty and exoticism of this magical country.

  Loving thanks to my daughter Brenna, who twice accompanied me on adventures through Morocco, and made the experiences all the more exciting and wondrous with her presence. Thanks must go to our own Blue Men: Habib, Ali and Omar. Habib drove us from Marrakesh through the High Atlas mountains to the edge of the Sahara, playing Santana and Leonard Cohen and lovely Arabic music to accompany our long and wild journey over the hamadas of the Atlas. Ali and Omar led us on camels and drove us across the erg — the dunes — and the plains of sand and gravel — the regs — of the Sahara to our nomad camp under the stars, where we found the Southern Cross. I especially appreciated Ali’s knowledge of life in the desert, and the wonderful stories of his mother, who was a nomad bride at the age of eleven. Omar kept us entertained with his songs and drumming and dancing, and taught us the hand-clapping that accompanies so many of the songs of the desert. Thanks to the unknown Berber woman who decorated our hands and feet with henna, and the accommodating staff at Hôtel Les Jardins de la Koutoubia in Marrakesh.

  On this side of the world, thank you to my older daughter Zalie and my son Kitt, for their understanding and great listening skills, and for always making me laugh. Thank you to my sister-in-law, Carole Bernicchia-Freeman, for supervising my French. And a special thank you to Paul for providing so much brilliant colour during the stark black and white realities of the writing life.

  Thanks go, again, to my agent, Sarah Heller, for everything from plot discussions to dinners and drinks to both commiserate and celebrate. Thanks to my editor in London, Sherise Hobbs at Headline, for the astute suggestions and gentle direction and patience.

  And a final thank you to the rest of my family and friends who have shown endless support during the writing of this book over a rather tumultuous but exciting period in my life.

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2009 by Linda Holeman

  This Traverse Press edition published in 2011

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Holeman, Linda

  Saffron Gate, The

  ISBN: 978-0-9877031-1-8

  Also by Linda Holeman

  The Linnet Bird

  The Moonlit Cage

  In a Far Country

  Table of Contents

  The Saffron Gate

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY ONE

  TWENTY TWO

  TWENTY THREE

  TWENTY FOUR

  TWENTY FIVE

  TWENTY SIX

  TWENTY SEVEN

  TWENTY EIGHT

  TWENTY NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY ONE

  THIRTY TWO

  THIRTY THREE

  THIRTY FOUR

  THIRTY FIVE

  THIRTY SIX

  THIRTY SEVEN

  THIRTY EIGHT

  THIRTY NINE

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Also by Linda Holeman