by Tom Gamble
‘Who hasn’t?’
‘But so much in love with a particular woman that you feel as though your only reason to live is to live for her?’
‘That’s a little dramatic, Abrach.’
‘But you said you were a writer.’
‘An unknown writer—a copywriter for meaningless products and lies.’
‘A writer is a writer under God, regardless of whether he is known to others or not. Don’t you agree? Do you not feel as though you are a writer?’
‘You make it sound as though I’ve failed the second part of a test,’ commented Summerfield, growing irritable.
‘I am simply stating my belief in your capacities, Harry. I also believe in signs. It was you who came to me on the bench in the square—a man who can assist me, if he so wishes.’
‘And was it me who came to you here?’ said Summerfield.
Abrach laughed. ‘Sometimes a man must give that initial sign a further push in order to help things along.’
‘So you followed me.’
‘I simply asked the man who showed you the way. You see, the idea came to me the moment you stepped away. We must pursue our ideas in life.’
‘I didn’t go to Spain to fight.’
‘But you did decide to stay longer in Marrakesh. Sometimes it is a question of choosing the right idea.’ Summerfield pursed his lips. He detested being pressed into a situation. As if sensing Summerfield’s resistance, Abrach added: ‘I’m afraid I may appear too aggressive. Forgive me—my trade has much influenced my ways. I wish not to force you, Sidi Summerfield. I would like us to find an arrangement that suits us both.’
Again Summerfield remained silent. A finch flew overhead, barely a foot from their heads and rested on a branch. It was so close Summerfield could see the beat of its heart. He sighed. The offer was interesting, bizarre, but not without complications. His idea had been to be responsible only to himself. And then he thought that too many times in the past he had missed out on opportunities—and why? Because of his fear, he told himself. Fear of the unknown, fear of his capacities.
‘Abrach—you want me to write love letters, is that it? Trick her? Isn’t it a little Romanesque—’
‘Just one letter—a real test. And then…’
‘Can I ask why you do not write to her?’
‘Because, my dear friend, I cannot write French as I speak it. It is one of the reasons I could not continue studying with the Europeans. And, to say the least, I am no poet. I was born to grow rich through selling.’
‘Then why don’t you simply tell her?’
A strange, sharp look momentarily came into Abrach’s eyes and he laughed to himself. ‘Because the woman in question is a European.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you, Mr Summerfield?’
‘I suppose you mean that blood is not to be mixed?’ Abrach nodded. ‘In some of our British dominions, the same law applies,’ added Summerfield. ‘And I suppose you understand that I would be breaking one my people’s codes of conduct.’
‘Do you really consider yourself one of them, Harry? They are French, they are Spanish. You are British. And I believe that the British hold certain opinions about their frères ennemis across the English Channel? Am I wrong? I believe you are a person who values equality, Sidi Harry. And I also believe that you consider yourself more like us, the Moroccans, than either the French or Spanish and despite the colour of our skin. All foreigners empathise—and that is the great irony of it all. For us Moroccans, we are foreigners in our own land.’
They sat for several minutes in silence. Another two customers entered, greeted them and chose a room on the opposite side of the lily pond. Although speaking softly, their words came to Summerfield, as mysterious and as enchanting as the early morning prayer. He suddenly felt tired, his mind muddled by the heat, this man, their haggling conversation. He had no notion of time and could not bring himself to glance at his watch. It didn’t matter.
‘Abrach,’ he said, tentatively—‘do you believe in destiny?’
The merchant laughed softly. ‘All men ask themselves this question. I think you know my answer. Though sometimes it is hidden—murky and dangerous. And other times it is as clear as the water in a mountain spring.’
‘Ten months ago I listened to a great man, one of the greatest writers of our times and he gave me the strength to finally follow what I’d always wanted to do and be. Then I came up against setbacks in Spain and I didn’t follow it through.’
‘Some say a setback is a way of testing our will to achieve what we want. If you changed path, then it is a sign that you did not really mean to follow that path to Spain.’
‘I am glad I am here,’ said Summerfield, almost to himself. ‘I hadn’t expected to—to feel so close to what I really want. I had so many false ideas.’
‘Which may indeed be put to the test,’ said Abrach. ‘And they may be proven right. It is for you to see.’
‘It isn’t easy. The American I met in Gibraltar, Jim Wilding, would have known,’ said Summerfield, thinking aloud.
‘Whatever way you choose, Harry Summerfield, remember that it is the good way. Otherwise, your life will be full of regret and of sorrow.’
‘So?’ said Summerfield.
‘So you know the way,’ replied Abrach, looking smug.
Summerfield looked steadily at the merchant for a few seconds and then drew breath. ‘I agree to that third proposal of yours.’
‘And the transaction, Sidi Summerfield?’
‘And I agree to the transaction,’ acquiesced Summerfield. ‘My pen will write beauty like no other before it.’
‘Maktub,’ said Abrach—It is written—and shook Summerfield’s hand.
3
Two days later, one of Abrach’s employees, a small, tacit man in his mid-forties, arrived at the hotel with a calash drawn by a sorrowful looking donkey. Abrach was not to be seen and when Summerfield asked the employee, the latter stood mute and uncomprehending. Summerfield wondered if the merchant had decided not to come through snobbery and felt disappointed. He’d hoped Abrach had understood his argument, his beliefs. Apparently not. His trunk and suitcase were loaded onto the calash and he stepped up behind the employee who gave the donkey’s hind quarters a sharp thwack with a cane. The beast pulled subserviently away, but not without a backwards and rather disdainful glance at the driver. Perhaps revenge in another life, thought Summerfield as they trotted along the track which ran parallel to the city walls.
They passed across the Djemaa El Fna, littered with the debris of the market, Summerfield recognising the spot where he’d first met Abrach. He thought he recognised the boy who had sold him tea, now leaning against the bench and without his cups and urn and waved, but the boy, although waving back, obviously didn’t remember him. He recognised, too, in the far right-hand corner of the square, the street that had lead him to the riad and hoped (the comfort of the known, he thought afterwards) the calash would take him in that direction. But it didn’t. Instead, the driver yanked the rein to the left and the donkey grudgingly changed direction, heading for a part of the city Summerfield hadn’t yet explored.
They entered the extreme western tip of the medina for fifty or so yards, a narrow, cobblestone way of one-storey huts, the sun shut out by a makeshift roof made of whatever materials had been found—wooden slats, branches and leaves from the date trees, chicken wire, glass, canvas and cardboard. At certain points, the shanty roof had disappeared and here, great funnels of light beamed down highlighting the millions of particles of dust filling the air and the crazy swirl of flies. A mass of sellers with their goods spilling onto the cobblestones operated from the small shop fronts. The sheer variety of goods and colour and smells made Summerfield’s head swirl but before he could focus on assembling the jigsaw into a clear picture, they were suddenly out into the blaring sunlight and a district which seemed entirely dedicated to bicycle repair work.
The smell of machine oil, rubber and the nauseating nip o
f aging metal filled his nostrils. It was like an open-air grave. Piles of parts, the skeletal remains of frames and twisted wheels, cogs in heaps of hundreds and the tragic, imploring clawing of mounds of handlebars and distorted spokes lay strewn either side of the street. Sometimes the piles lay slap bang in the middle of the way, so that Abrach’s employee had to manoeuvre his way delicately round or else, on one occasion where the wheel got stuck, harangue a group of idlers into shifting the pile.
A feeling took hold of Summerfield that he recognised as excitement. Excitement mixed with a little fear. A sudden thought entered him that it was here that he was going to live—at least for a while. A completely foreign place, more than a thousand miles from home and a world away from his culture. Part of him wanted to resist. Part of him told him it was a filthy and lazy world. A world that, because it was different, was ultimately wrong. It is not civilised, said a voice in his head. It is dangerous, said another. But above these inner demons, another voice said, I would simply like to see and live it and understand.
Strangely, it was as though his instinct knew something, something that inextricably linked him to his future. It was the same feeling he’d felt last year, when in the crowd that spilled into the reading rooms of that London library, he’d listened to Orwell’s description of the struggle in Spain. A sort of kindling flame in his stomach and in his heart. A flame that had sparked a rush of blood to his head. Everything, in that precise moment, had seemed to come together. It was the same now, he realised, the same sense that this was what it meant. Only now it was almost stronger, and at least more palpable, because he was here and receiving sparks constantly from everything around him. It was first hand, in vicarious rhythm with his environment, a companion.
The scores of little workshops with their piles of dissected bicycles were left behind as sharply as he had entered them and another district opened itself up. On the right, the rear walls of the medina with its shanty roofing. On the left, homes which were, to Summerfield’s eyes, just the same type of huts but this time piled irregularly on top of each other to form constructions of three to four storeys high. Some had glass in their windows, others wooden blinds or rusting iron bars and others nothing at all. Here and there, quaint little shop fronts with their strange, Arabic writing above the door and, in smaller letters, French, announcing the nature of their trade: Pharmacie, Dentiste, Epicerie, Coiffeur… It was into these, at first a wide turning which quickly narrowed into a grid of tracks—themselves promising a future as an extension to the old medina—that the calash turned and came to a halt.
Summerfield made to get down, but the employee—who now introduced himself as Nassir—shook his head and motioned a gesture which suggested he should stay in the calash. Summerfield obeyed. The little man descended and shifted through the crowd, now and then rising on tiptoe, obviously looking for someone.
While Nassir searched, a small group of boys appeared, barefoot, grimy and dressed in an odd assortment of stained clothes, hand-me-downs from older brothers or cousins. Some of them, dirty-cheeked, beamed him smiles. Others just stared at him. Summerfield saw beyond what could have been mistaken for hostility to a deep wariness, a mix of concentrated distrust and fear and, above all, pure curiosity. They continued for some moments to stare at each other and then, feeling mischievous, Summerfield sharply raised his arm whereupon several of the boys flinched—one actually turning heel and beginning to run—and then brought it to a rest at his nape where he calmly began to scratch an imaginary itch. He did it again and the effect was less dramatic. This time he grinned and the boys chattered with laughter. One of them held out his hand for money, then another and another followed. Summerfield shrugged his shoulders but the boys pressed forward, pushing noisily against the phlegmatic donkey. Luckily, Nassir appeared and, brandishing his cane, scolded them in Arabic. The boys turned heels and ran, if only for a few yards or so. Summerfield had the distinct feeling that some of Nassir’s words had also been directed at him and felt vaguely stupid. He was right, thought Summerfield. He was no longer a tourist, but one of them and had to respect the rules of his new home.
At last, Nassir beckoned him to get down from the calash. At ground level, things felt a little different and Summerfield was overcome by a brief sensation of being lost. There seemed to be people everywhere and they all seemed to look the same. The driver pulled on his arm and Summerfield followed, his rucksack in hand, along the street. There was a foul-smelling tree, the base of which had been liberally doused in urine, and it was here that Nassir turned left along a shaded pathway, roughly five yards wide, to a door. Summerfield raised his eyebrows inquisitively and the unsmiling Nassir looked upwards. Summerfield nodded back. At least, he thought thankfully, he wouldn’t be at ground level.
When the driver had gone—hovering around for a tip that Summerfield begrudgingly handed over, he found himself alone behind a closed door of peeling green paint. The lack of noise was striking. It was part of the jigsaw that made up the city’s puzzle—the ability to descend from the loudest din to a profound silence in all of a few yards. Turning, Summerfield set eyes on his new home.
In one corner, through the dimness, there was a rough oven made of bricks and clay and covered in a metal grid. A conduit ran vertically from the back of it and disappeared through the roof where a large patch of black stained the ceiling. Two threadbare carpets—almost impossible to discern the original colour—covered the middle of the room. There was a wooden bed, a chest of drawers and a low table with two cushions. An open doorway led to another room and Summerfield, unconsciously checking the door was rightly closed, went through to explore.
The second room was half-lit by sunlight from the street. It was empty but for a bucket, a small desk and, thank God, a chair which looked as though it had had a former life in one of the city’s Franco-Spanish administrative offices. The window, or more specifically, the large gaping space in the wall, much to the delight of the flies which buzzed energetically in and out, was without glass. The walls were of pink plaster, rough and undulating, the smell non-descript if not slightly mossy.
But it was something else that caught Summerfield’s attention more than anything else—a narrow set of steps that lead upwards to a wooden trap in the ceiling. He climbed up, pushed and received a shower of dust and grit. He pushed again, harder, and this time the trap flapped back with a loud bang. Summerfield squeezed carefully through and found himself on the roof. He remained squatting for a few seconds, determining the limits of this platform, slowly getting his eyes accustomed to the painful light. He immediately felt the sun on his skin, pressing down onto his face, neck, forearms and hands, gaining pressure, gaining heat. After some moments, he stood up, not a natural lover of heights, and almost shuffled the few steps across the baked surface to lean forwards and peer over. To his surprise, only six or seven feet below was another roof—or terrace as he now recognised—and below that another. The first-floor terrace was half-covered in a tarpaulin giving shade, the second in a large tent much like those Summerfield had seen in desert paintings of the Bedouins. There were also plants and spindly trees in pots and a large cistern for catching rain water (if it ever rained, he thought). He stood back, erect now and more assured and surveyed the clutter of roofs across the immediate horizon. The noise of the streets rose up to him, the smells of the city changing in the light breeze. In the not-too-far distance, the high minaret of the Koutubia and others, mostly angular, poking up from the sprawl of the medina. He glanced at his forearm, noticed it had turned quite a vivid pink, and decided to return to his rooms.
On the small desk before the large window was a letter. Abrach’s employee must have left it there. Summerfield sat on the chair, lit up a cigarette and opened it.
‘Greetings indeed once more, Sidi Summerfield,’ it began and Summerfield couldn’t help snorting a laugh at the quaint protocol. And then he remembered that Abrach disliked writing—he’d probably had it transcribed orally. He read on. ‘I took care to ens
ure that the accommodation is furnished. You may add to those furnishings as seen necessary. A man of mine, Badr, will come once weekly to ensure that all is fine. He will also perform three duties I have entrusted him: he will collect the money owing for the accommodation, he will also hand you a sealed letter with payment for the letter you will write. And lastly, he will, if our business agreement may continue, hand you instructions as to any further correspondence to undertake and collect any previously written correspondence written (a mistake, noticed Summerfield). I would also wish to see you once weekly to discuss our business. I finish by reminding you of the conditions of our agreement, notably the faith I place in your discretion and your abilities in your craft. I also add that I am able to terminate the agreement when deemed fit. Naturally, any papers relating to the drafting and writing of our correspondence are to be destroyed. Badr is to witness this in your presence.
Yours faithfully and soon…’
There was no signature. Summerfield sat back and stubbed out his cigarette in the bucket, immediately realising that it was perhaps there for other purposes. He thought about Abrach’s words. All the secrecy. Perhaps it meant the possibility of danger, he wondered. Still, it was an agreement and Summerfield felt bound to the merchant if not for the fact that he appreciated him. And then, like an apple falling on his head, the realisation suddenly came to him that he hadn’t discussed the price. What a crafty—began Summerfield and smiled. Inchalla, he said softly, turning to the window: let it be God’s will.
Two days later, Summerfield journeyed out to the main post office to wire Jim Wilding his new address. When he returned there was a tall, sinewy young Moroccan waiting for him in the narrow street in front of his rooms.
‘Badr,’ said the adolescent, scratching his chin and Summerfield noticed the striking blue of his eyes—Berber blood. ‘J’ai une lettre pour vous.’