We were coming in to land, passing buildings that had 1930s French Foreign Legion atmospherics. The sand was just beyond; the encroaching reality abutting the city’s frontiers. As apprehensive and tense as I was – as much as I dreaded the confrontation that was ahead of me – there was still something extraordinary about my first sighting of the Sahara.
The airport was hot and fly-blown, its style post-war military. Inside the arrivals hall was an information desk, manned by a young woman in a hijab. I told her the name of my hotel. She knew it immediately and said it was a short taxi ride from here. I also showed her the scrap of paper on which Ben Hassan had scribbled Faiza’s address. She got out a map of Ouarzazate and marked the location of the hotel, then used a yellow highlighter to trace a route to Faiza’s front door. It was, she said, five minutes by foot.
‘Don’t pay the taxi driver more than thirty dirhams,’ she said. ‘If he says no, tell him that you are going to report him to me – Fatima. He’ll know me. They all do.’
Actually the cabbie accepted the offer of 30 dirhams without the usual bartering. And indeed the Oasis Hotel was very close, just off the very wide main drag that, so early in the morning, still seemed half-awake. I took in the desert deco architecture, the languid men loitering in cafés, the blast-furnace heat. The cab had no air conditioning and according to the gauge on the dashboard the temperature was forty-three degrees Celsius. By the time we reached the hotel – all two minutes later – my lightweight clothes were sodden.
The Oasis was, at first glance, a slightly shabbier version of our hotel in Essaouira. At least the lobby was air conditioned – and the heavyset woman behind the desk was welcoming. When I explained that I was Paul Leuen’s wife I could see her lips tighten.
‘Monsieur Leuen has just gone out for a walk,’ she said.
‘Really?’
‘You seem surprised.’
‘It’s a bit early for a walk, that’s all.’
‘Monsieur Leuen . . . he was out walking until three a.m., so my night man told me. And he came in very intoxicated. I am sorry to report this, madame.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it.’
‘He was also shouting in his room late last night. The night man had to go up and tell him to be quiet. He found Monsieur Leuen in a very bad place. Drinking wine and crying. He got very apologetic when he was told he was waking the other guests.’
I shut my eyes, trying to keep my emotions in check. I was furious at Paul. But I was also terrified for him – and the crazed trajectory down which he was travelling.
‘Do you have any idea where he headed to just now?’ I asked.
‘None at all. But Ouarzazate is not a big place. And he left only five minutes ago. Try the cafés on the Avenue Mohamed V.’
‘I apologise for all the trouble he’s caused you.’
‘I am simply happy to see you here, madame. If you can assure me that he will be quiet tonight I will let you both stay here. Had you not arrived I would have shown him the door.’
I wanted to go upstairs and drop my bag and have a shower before facing the heat again. But part of me also knew that time was of the essence; that I needed to find Paul now.
‘A question, madame,’ I said. ‘Besides the flights to Casablanca, isn’t there a direct service from Ouarzazate to Paris?’
‘Every Monday, Friday and Sunday at five p.m. So yes, as it is Sunday today . . .’
‘Could you please find out if there are any seats on this afternoon’s flight while I go look for my husband?’
‘With pleasure, madame. If you would like to leave your bag here I will make certain it is kept safe for you.’
‘Thank you for your kindness and decency.’
‘I wish you luck, madame.’
I wished myself that too.
Before I left I dug out Paul’s passport from my bag, and slipped it into the button-down pocket on my pants.
I headed out into the back street, turning up a dusty alleyway in which a young boy – he couldn’t have been more than seven – was milking a goat, the white liquid spraying into an empty tin can. He looked up and smiled at me, saying:
‘Fresh milk – just ten dirhams.’
I smiled back and moved on, dodging two elderly women on canes, their faces hidden by black burqas. They moved so slowly in the maniacal sun. How could they cope with the hefty black Islamic garb in this inferno? One of them held out a hand. I stopped, reached into my pocket, found a 5-dirham coin and placed it in her palm. Out of nowhere her fingers closed against mine. In a croaky whisper she uttered:
‘Faites attention, madame.’
Be careful.
What did she know that I didn’t?
I turned down another spindly street before reaching the city’s main drag, Avenue Mohamed V. Adobe-shaded sandstone in a colonial fortress style defined the architecture. The sun was, after just two minutes outside, beginning to play games with my equilibrium. So I stopped at a small stall and bought a replacement green khaki field hat and a litre of bottled water, drinking almost half of it in one go. Then, over the next twenty minutes, I went from café to café, scanning all the terraces and interiors for any sign of my husband. I approached every waiter I saw, Paul’s passport in hand, showing them his photograph, asking them if they’d perhaps seen this man in the past few minutes, indicating that finding him was an urgent matter. All the waiters were polite. All said that, alas, they hadn’t seen him.
One man at a café – mid-fifties, a little portly, but still relatively well preserved and dressed in Moroccan merchant casual (cream slacks, a grey polo shirt, Italianate loafers) – overheard me enquiring about Paul and stood up.
‘Perhaps I can help you,’ he said in excellent English, motioning me over to his table. He introduced himself as Mr Rashid and offered me a coffee.
‘You think you’ve seen this man?’ I asked, holding up the passport photo.
‘Indeed I have. But you first need something to drink, I think.’
‘Where did you see him exactly?’
‘On this street a few minutes ago.’
‘Can you tell me exactly where?’
‘I’d love to know your name first.’
I told him.
‘Well, Robin, let me offer you a citron pressé and then we can get into my car – I have a very large and comfortable Mercedes – and start looking for him. And if we don’t find him, maybe you can have lunch with me.’
I stood up.
‘Thank you for wasting several valuable minutes of my time.’
The man looked shocked at this rebuff.
‘There’s no need to talk to me that way.’
‘You never saw him, did you? You were just hoping to take advantage of a woman in distress.’
‘Are you always so aggressive?’
‘Are you always so oily?’
‘Now I know why your husband went missing.’
He said this with a smirk on his face, then added something in Arabic to the men who were seated nearby, watching this scene with amusement. That’s when I lost it.
‘What the fuck did you say?’ I hissed.
He was taken aback by my use of that expletive.
‘Madame has an ugly way with words.’
‘Only when being hustled by a little man with a small penis.’
Now he looked as if I had kicked him directly in the crotch.
‘Go on, translate what I just said to your friends,’ I said, hurrying off down the street, trying to contain my considerable fury.
But then I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks.
There, on the far side of the street, was my husband.
He was wearing the same white shirt and shorts he’d left the hotel room in two days ago. He was seriously unshaven, his long grey hair askew across his head. Even in the white light of the Saharan morning I could see that he was exhausted, lost.
‘Paul! Paul!’ I yelled. But as soon as those words were out of my mouth a vast truck – the length of a city
block – came rattling down the Avenue Mohamed V. Paul didn’t seem to hear my cries, or maybe they were drowned out by the approaching lorry. Not thinking, I tried to dash across the street, but was thrown backwards by the deafening blast of the truck’s horn, the driver gesticulating wildly. I found myself now almost in the path of a Renault van coming in the opposite direction. The driver slammed on the brakes and started shouting things at me through his rolled-down window, while men in the nearby cafés stood up to watch the spectacle, caused by a deranged American woman trying to get to her missing husband who now stood just feet away.
When the lorry pulled away fifteen seconds later, I prepared to rush over and take my husband in my arms and assure him that, despite everything, I still loved him; that we would be out of this craziness and in Paris tonight.
But when the lorry pulled away . . .
Paul was no longer there.
It took me a dazed moment to register this fact. He had vanished.
I hurried across to where I’d seen him standing. I looked north. I looked south. I ran into the little patisserie directly in front of which he had been momentarily rooted. There were only two people in the shop, along with the baker behind the counter.
‘Anyone seen an American?’ I shouted. ‘Very tall, long grey hair?’
They all looked startled by my outburst. When the baker shook his head I ran back into the street, scanning all corners of the immediate horizon, certain he was there somewhere. There were two cafés nearby and I charged up the street towards them. No Paul. A fast trot back to the exact place I’d seen him, thinking maybe there was a rear laneway directly behind this spot into which he had disappeared. No laneway. No Paul. Up the street I hurried, turning left into the first side street I could find. It was open and spacious, with blocks of modern apartments on either side. No Paul. And no shops or restaurants or cafés into which he could have ducked. Back to the Avenue Mohamed V, now getting increasingly stricken by all this running about in one-hundred-degree heat. No Paul. Again I stood in the spot where I’d seen him less than three minutes ago, beyond perplexed as to how I could have lost him moments after finding him.
I still had the half-litre of water in hand. Standing under the shade of the patisserie’s awning I leaned against the wall and downed it in moments, wooziness overtaking me. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. Paul!
But no, it was the baker, who’d come out with a small folding stool, a pastry and a bottle of lemonade. He insisted on helping me onto the stool. After ensuring that I was eating and getting some necessary sugar into my bloodstream, he went back inside and returned with a linen cloth soaked in cold water. He put this around my neck – evidently a fast desert remedy for anyone suffering from dehydration. It worked. I felt a bit better within a few minutes. Refusing my offer of money he asked in French again if I was certain that I was all right; that he could get one of his assistants to help me back to my hotel. I thanked him repeatedly, telling him how truly touched I was by his kindness.
‘I wish you luck, madame.’
Could he too read the despair in my eyes?
I stood up, testing my legs. Their present status was somewhere between rubbery and resilient. I headed out across the boulevard, intending to go back to the hotel and see if Paul had returned in my absence, and suddenly cursing myself for forgetting to tell the woman at reception not to mention that I’d been looking for him. But as I made it to the other side of the Avenue Mohamed V and cut down the same narrow laneway where I saw the boy milking the goat, a figure maybe fifteen feet in front of me veered to the right, taking an even narrower by-path. The man’s height and free-flowing grey hair left me in no doubt that it was Paul. When I shouted his name he seemed oblivious to my voice. I started to sprint, determined to catch up with him. But when I reached the laneway – a tiny passage, no more than four feet wide – no Paul. There were no immediate doorways into which he could have disappeared. Even when, after around a hundred feet, I reached an archway, all I saw inside were two elderly men brewing tea on a little gas stove. Again I showed the passport photo. Their reaction was bemusement. I returned to the lane – so narrow and confined – trying to figure into what nook he could have vanished. Or did he clear out of this byway further on? I hurried to the end of the lane, only to discover it was a dead end. The wall had some rusted barbed wire on it, which made the idea of getting over it just a little daunting. When I touched it I discovered that it had the density and grip of damp chalk. There was no way whatsoever that even a particularly adept cat could have scaled that wall.
I shut my eyes, wanting to be anywhere but here and also knowing that I had to get out of this blind alley now. So back I went, retracing my steps until I found the main alleyway again, glancing frantically everywhere as I made my way back to the hotel.
The woman who’d greeted me earlier was at the front desk.
‘No luck?’ she asked.
I shook my head.
‘Maybe he’ll come back soon. If you want to go upstairs . . .’
‘I would like that.’
‘Housekeeping hasn’t been in to clean the room yet.’
‘I’m sure it will be fine. Just one small request – when my husband does come back, please don’t tell him I’m upstairs. He’s in a delicate place and might run off if he finds out I’m here. My hope is that, when he does come upstairs, I will be able to talk him into leaving this afternoon.’
‘I have good news on that front. There are still seven seats open on the Paris flight. They are expensive, being last-minute – five thousand two hundred dirhams apiece. Still, if you want them you should let me know no later than one o’clock. D’accord?’
‘D’accord.’
The room was air conditioned. And reasonably spacious, though given the narrowness of these back streets its balcony only afforded a view of a wall some ten feet away. But was what immediately distressing was the chaotic state of the place. Twisted sheets with streaked bloodstains on the pillows – was his head wound still bleeding? Crumpled paper everywhere. An ashtray brimming with cigarette butts (he gave up nicotine around the same time we got together). The remnants of two bottles of wine. And in the bathroom – no, this was too grim – an unflushed toilet.
I pulled the cistern chain. I picked up the house phone and rang downstairs, asking if the maid could be sent up now. I then returned and dumped the contents of the ashtray into the toilet and flushed it all away. I found a box of matches and lit two of them, walking between the bathroom and the bedroom in an attempt to mask the faecal smell and the lingering aroma of sweaty sheets which permeated these two rooms. I emptied the remnants of the wine bottles. I began to uncrumple the many pieces of paper that had been balled up and tossed everywhere. Tortured line drawings of a lone man in an empty space that seemed to be a desert. The drawings were half-finished. In each one of them it was evident that Paul was having trouble finishing the figure’s face; a figure so tall that he seemed to be towering over a sand dune. But this self-portraiture was underscored by a face that had turned grotesque. Drawing after drawing showed this representation of Paul with his face half-melting away, or being scorched beyond recognition by the sun. Amidst these discarded, unhinged sketches, there were several half-started letters. My love . . . Dearest Robin . . . You have married a catastrophe . . . Most chillingly, there were two notes, already partially burnt, with the same word repeated on both scraps of paper:
Finished.
The second of these notes unnerved me – because the word appeared to have been scratched on the page with blood.
The maid knocked on the door. I told her to give me a minute and quickly finished dumping all the paper into a bin, pulling off the bloodied pillowcase, gathering up the soiled towels so she wouldn’t be exposed to such extremity. Yet again I was cleaning up after my husband – and even slipped the very young cheery maid 30 dirhams, apologising for the state of the room.
‘Mon mari est bordélique,’ I told her. My husband is all over the plac
e.
The maid seemed nonplussed by the state of things.
‘I’ve seen worse,’ she said.
She told me to come back in a half-hour: ‘Everything will be all fine again.’ Would that a magic wand could be waved.
All I could think of now was that one word – finished – interspersed with those wildly destructive self-portraits. And my fear that unless rescued . . .
No, don’t enter that terrain. He’s still here in Ouarzazate. It’s only a matter of time before he shows up back at the hotel. I glanced at my watch. It was just a little after nine a.m. As long as he returned within four hours we could secure those seats on the Paris flight and be out of all this.
But first . . . I went down to the lobby. The woman behind the desk asked if she could get me anything. She also told me her name was Yasmina. I suddenly needed to confide in someone – not about the grubbier aspects of the story, but about the fact that my husband had suffered a breakdown, had disappeared from our hotel in Essaouira and, through the wonders of the Internet, I had traced him here.
‘Anything you can do to help me find him – or, at the very least, hold him here and get us on that plane to Paris . . .’
‘I don’t have a pair of handcuffs,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘But I do have a man who runs things here at night. His name is Yusuf, and he usually sleeps until eleven a.m. But if you would agree to give him, say, three hundred dirhams, I think he wouldn’t object to me ringing him now and getting him out of bed to search Ouarzazate for your husband. He knows every corner of this town. He knows everybody here. If he can’t find him then he is lost to the sand.’
I handed over the 300 dirhams, thinking this was a small price to pay for someone who might be able to root out Paul.
The maid came downstairs to tell me that the room was clean, and that she had lit a jasmine incense stick to ‘purify’ the place. She actually used that word. Again I thanked her and Yasmina for their benevolence.
‘If you leave your clothes outside the door we’ll have them washed and dried in less than two hours.’
I felt absurdly tired – the short night, the adjustment to the ferocious Saharan heat, the fruitless hundred-yard dashes all morning in search of Paul . . . all I could think of now was a cool shower and then a spell in clean sheets. I headed back upstairs. Once inside I stripped everything off and dropped it outside the door. Then I stood in the shower for a good ten minutes. Before climbing into the freshly laundered bed, I called downstairs and asked Yasmina to give me a wake-up call at one o’clock . . . unless Paul arrived before then.
The Heat of Betrayal Page 19