‘Which is why we need to stay here until sunrise.’
It took us almost an hour to reach the village of Asaka, which had just four houses. The one at which we stopped was lived in by a man in his fifties with a young wife and four children, all of whom seemed to be under the age of six. The wife was still pretty, but clearly beaten down by life. She barked at her children. She barked at her husband who sat on a stool, smoking and looking quietly disconsolate. She barked at Aatif, berating him for something while getting her two oldest kids to load up his van with the djellabas she had made. When her husband offered tea Aatif declined, pointing to the road and making some excuse about needing to get north soon.
As soon as Asaka was behind us, Aatif steered the vehicle down a track so narrow, so hemmed in by sand on either side, that it was just wide enough for our one vehicle. We bumped along for about quarter of an hour until we reached a small clearing by which there was a pump. Here we parked and set up camp for the night. Aatif said that, with a full load in the van, we could cut short the trip and get to Marrakesh late tomorrow evening, but only if we left before dawn. That was fine by me. The sooner I could get to Marrakesh the sooner I could sell my jewellery.
‘The water, it is not good for drinking,’ Aatif said as he got one of the jerrycans of water out of the rear of the vehicle; a cargo area now so jammed with goods that there was little room for the spare cans of fuel and water that he carried. He used the clean water to make tea and couscous. I asked him if I could wash at the pump. He told me that I shouldn’t use more than four or five pulls, as water was so scarce out here that we mustn’t use much. Especially as the next person coming along might be in desperate need of it.
He put the couscous on to boil, then walked off. I stripped down and pumped the water. The first dispatch of liquid was revoltingly brown, the second a little more neutral. The third looked relatively clear. I had no soap, no toothbrush (I hadn’t brushed my teeth since that last night in Tata), no basin. Still, the feel of water against my bare skin was restorative. I got into my nightshirt, my skin still wet.
‘That woman, she is always complaining, always bitter,’ Aatif said as we ate. ‘But that is not my Hafeza. She is far too kind to turn into such an angry woman.’
I thought that trying to raise four kids in the middle of nowhere, and in poverty, would make anyone bitter.
Instead I said:
‘I am happy for you that you have found someone nice.’
‘I will be happy if I can give her father what he wants. You have dowries in America?’
‘No, not exactly. But trust me, when it comes to the end of love, it’s all about money.’
‘Money is not everything,’ he said. ‘But without it . . .’
‘What else would you like, besides a house for you and Hafeza?’
‘A mobile phone. It would be very useful for my business. I had one for a while, but it was expensive. Then I had to start saving for a house. So I could not afford the phone any more. Beyond that, a new television maybe. Mine is fifteen years old, and the picture is very bad. And of course, Hafeza will want to furnish the house.’
The hope in his face was so touching. I feared for him if he could not find the money necessary to win her hand. Not that he would fall apart, but that he would know further disappointment.
Night fell. I opened my bed roll, but found the ground near the car far too uneven. So I told Aatif I was going to move behind a small dune just a few feet from the vehicle. I wished him a good night, carried the bed roll over and laid it out. Then, after downing my evening dosage of knock-out tea that Aatif had prepared, I crawled between the sheets, placed the mosquito net over my head, and lay staring up at the stars, thinking: Tomorrow I will be in a city. Will I ever again see a night sky so vast and clear as this?
Sleep descended quickly. But then, out of nowhere, I heard voices. Angry, threatening voices. I stirred awake as they grew louder. It was still night. I glanced at my watch. Four-twelve a.m. I crawled out of my bed roll and crept to the edge of the sand dune. Poking my head around it I saw four men – I couldn’t determine their ages – surrounding Aatif. Two of them were holding him while the other two were emptying his van of all its goods. When Aatif pleaded with them, one of them slapped him hard across the face. I ducked back behind the dune. Frantically digging a hole in the sand I pulled off my two rings and my father’s Rolex and buried them, finding a rock on the ground to mark the spot. Then I sat very still, terrified of what might happen next.
More voices, more entreaties from Aatif. The sound of a punch and Aatif now crying. Then vehicle doors opening and slamming, Aatif issuing one last plea, a car engine rumbling into life, wheels moving away along the sand. I waited a good five minutes just to be certain that those men weren’t coming back. Then I dug up my rings and watch and dashed over. I found Aatif lying in the sand, holding his stomach, crying loudly.
‘Thieves, thieves . . . they took everything.’
I tried to put my arms around him to help him up, but he recoiled at my touch.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked.
‘They slapped my face, they punched me in the stomach, they took everything out of the van. They even found my wallet and stole my four hundred dirhams. The only money I had . . .’
He got himself to his knees, put his face in his hands and started weeping again.
‘I have no luck,’ he sobbed. ‘No luck at all. Life . . . it is too hard.’
I reached out and put a steadying hand on his shoulder.
‘You’re alive,’ I said. ‘And there is always a solution.’
‘A solution? A solution? I’m ruined.’
‘You’re not ruined.’
‘Those thieves . . . they have wiped me out. All the goods in the car, gone. I have no money to get us to Marrakesh . . .’
‘You filled the tank today. And you also filled the two jerrycans you keep in the back. Did they steal those?’
‘I don’t know.’
I scrambled over to the vehicle, praying to some almighty force in that brilliantly lit sky above to let me find those two full jerrycans. I threw open the back door. Bingo! They were there, along with two full cans of water.
‘We’ve got fuel,’ I said. ‘Two full jerrycans, plus the near-full tank. Will that be enough to get us to Marrakesh?’
He nodded.
‘That’s one good piece of news. Here’s my next question – how much were the goods you were transporting likely to make for their producers?’
He did some quick calculations in his head.
‘If I was to get them the best price . . . maybe eight thousand dirhams.’
‘And you would be getting thirty-five per cent of the total price, which means that you would have needed to sell them all for twelve thousand dirhams.’
Aatif looked at me, bemused.
‘Why are you so you with numbers?’
‘It’s my job. Anyway, if we get on the road for Marrakesh now, how long will it take us to drive there?’
‘Maybe ten, twelve hours.’
‘Do you know a good jeweller there?’
‘I know people who know people who know jewellers.’
‘So here’s the solution. We give those bastards half an hour to get out of the area, then we’ll get on the road, I’ll wear the burqa all the way to Marrakesh to get us through the checkpoints. When we get to the city we’ll find a jeweller who will give me the price I want, and I will give you the two thousand dirhams I owe you for driving me . . . and twelve thousand as well for the goods stolen from you. So all your clients who are so dependent on you will get paid. And you’ll get paid too.’
‘I can’t accept this,’ he said.
‘You’re going to accept this. Because it was my stupidity that made me take off the burqa and let the French couple see me. Which led us down the back path. Which led you to being robbed. So you have no choice but to accept the money. Are we clear about that?’
He stifled a sob, rubbing his eyes w
ith his hardened hands.
‘I don’t deserve such kindness.’
‘Yes, you do. We all deserve kindness. And bad luck, monsieur, can change.’
He stood up, taking several deep steadying breaths.
‘Thé à la menthe?’ he finally asked.
‘That would be very good right now,’ I said, my adrenalin only beginning to subside after that chilling wake-up call – and the terrifying thought that history might have repeated itself out here, had I not been hidden behind that dune. I felt a shudder coming on and hugged myself. Aatif saw this attack of nerves – and did something unexpected. He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder.
‘OK, le thé,’ he said, trying to smile. ‘And then . . . Marrakesh.’
Twenty-six
IT TOOK US almost thirteen hours to reach Marrakesh. It was a hellish drive. When Aatif first got behind the wheel after the robbery his hands were shaking. He started to sob. I took hold of his arm until he subsided. Then, lighting a cigarette, he put the van into gear and hit the accelerator. We bumped along the rutted sand tracks for almost an hour. The relief at feeling actual paved road beneath our wheels was massive. So too was the fact that there was no police blockade awaiting us. When we started to head north to Tazenakht, I asked Aatif if he was going to report the robbery to the police.
‘That would just get us into even more trouble. There aren’t many roaming thieves in Morocco, though I’ve always been warned never to take back roads. But if I let the police know what happened, even if they apprehended these men, then what? They’ll do a year in jail. Then they’ll come out, looking for me. It’s not worth the risk.’
‘I feel so guilty about making you take that road.’
‘Don’t be. I’ve slept near that village several times and never had any trouble. We were unlucky.’
We got lucky, however, in Tazenakht. Yes, there was a police roadblock, but we got through it in minutes. The cops looked at our identity papers, glanced at the empty cargo area, asked a few questions and sent us on our way.
Four hours of non-stop desert followed. We stopped once to funnel one of the jerrycans of gas into the vehicle. We drank a little water and ate what pitta bread we had left. I ducked behind an abandoned house to relieve myself. We were both very conscious of the fact that we had no money whatsoever and we simply had to get to Marrakesh by night.
At the checkpoint before Ouarzazate, when the young police officer started asking me questions, Aatif had to do his spiel about me having mental challenges. Even so, the cop continued to address me. I stared blankly ahead, willing the interrogation to be over. When I didn’t answer he got a little vehement until Aatif again seemed to be explaining that I was deaf (he kept touching his ears). The cop was clearly suspicious and called over an older officer, explaining the situation, motioning to my burqa, clearly indicating that he wanted me to remove it. The older officer – he looked well into his fifties – sidled over and had a chat with Aatif. Whatever was said seemed to do the trick, as the older cop motioned to his colleague that there was no need to continue the interrogation. He waved us on.
When we were clear of the checkpoint I noticed Aatif gripping the wheel, trying to forestall another panic attack.
‘That was close,’ I said.
He nodded agreement. Many times. And noted that, with any luck, the next checkpoint wouldn’t be until Marrakesh.
As we negotiated the Avenue Mohamed V in Ouarzazate, I kept scanning the streets in some vain hope that Paul would suddenly materialise. Aatif, meanwhile, seemed so pained to be here. He spent much of our time on the main boulevard with his eyes focused downwards. Just as I was desperate to lay eyes on my missing spouse, so I assumed he was desperate not to come across the woman who broke his heart by running off with the bakery tsar of Ouarzazte. We are all haunted, in our own various ways, by our romantic past and present.
‘The road ahead – it is complicated,’ Aatif said. ‘Are you afraid of heights?’
An hour or so later I certainly was, as we had gained almost six thousand feet in altitude and were driving on a single-lane switchback road, hugging the edge of the Atlas Mountains.
Every hundred yards or so there was a blind corner, behind which lurked assorted obstacles: an oncoming lorry, a shepherd with a flock of two dozen goats, a young Moroccan daredevil on a motorcycle who nearly ploughed into us, shouting abuse before speeding off along another hairpin turn.
But what made this drive across a mountain pass called the Tizi-a-Ticha even more terrifying was the fact that one small mistake would send us into free-fall. On the passenger side I had a dizzying view of the deep ravine that began around a foot away from our right-side tyres. There was no wall, no guard rail, nothing to stop us from going over the side.
‘In winter, with snow, it is terrible,’ Aatif said.
In high summer, it was still something of a roller-coaster ride, each turn presenting a new navigational challenge, or some potential oncoming onslaught. Aatif smoked non-stop during the most taxing stages of the drive, humming to himself at the same time. As his humming increased, I was suddenly transported back to a drive with my father when I was fifteen and we were moving from Chicago to Minneapolis. We got caught in a huge blizzard on the interstate. Despite the fact that the visibility was zero Dad kept driving at 60 mph and hummed to himself throughout (‘Fly Me to the Moon’, of all things), ignoring my mother’s entreaties to slow down. Aatif wasn’t driving dangerously; on the contrary, he was a pinnacle of prudence. But he did tell me that, even though he drove this road twice a month, it never ceased to get to him.
‘There is at least one terrible accident here every week,’ he said.
‘But we’re not going to be this week’s tragedy.’
‘Insha’Allah.’
There was an awful moment when, as we passed through a mountain village, a young boy of seven or so chased a ball into the road, right in our path. Aatif slammed on the brakes. We skidded frighteningly towards the precipice on which the village rested. I screamed and had my hands over my eyes as Aatif somehow managed to stop us just before our front wheels went over. The boy ran off, spooked about almost being run over and almost sending us over the edge into the valley below (a fall of at least one thousand feet). There was a moment of terrible silence. Aatif did what he always did when stressed: he gripped the steering wheel tightly for several moments, trying to regain his equilibrium. Then he lit up a cigarette.
After several drags, he backed up the vehicle and we were on our way.
‘That was nearly the fatal accident of the week,’ he said.
The road began to improve as we lost altitude. The woozy verticality – and the potential for mortal danger – diminished as we started heading through flatter ground. Night fell. We filled the gas tank with the final jerrycan of gas and ate the last of our bread.
‘Where’s your jeweller?’ I asked.
‘We first have to go to my merchant in the souk because he is expecting a delivery from me and will be disappointed to see my vehicle empty. But he might know someone.’
‘The way we’re going now we should reach Marrakesh at what time?’
‘Just before eight . . . if there are no roadblocks.’
There was a huge one on the outskirts of the city, backed up for quarter of a kilometre. It took us over forty minutes to edge our way to the front.
‘They are not just looking for you,’ Aatif explained before we reached the officers. ‘They’re also looking for terrorists.’
But everything was so clogged up with cars that, after a cursory glance at our ID cards, the police waved us through.
Marrakesh. I was expecting something mythical. I wasn’t ready for all the new housing developments. Or the shopping malls with big international stores. Or the chain hotels. Or the congealed traffic. Or the hyper-tourist economy. We parked near the famed souk – an amazing open square on which snake charmers were frightening visitors with their vipers. Monkeys were running wild. A camel stood fo
rlornly as people climbed on it for a photograph. Men were bothering every foreign woman who was walking alone. Tour guides were offering an exclusive tour of the souk. I saw a fellow American – late forties, preppy businessman clothes, very button-down with a wife wearing khakis and a matching blue Oxford shirt – losing it with a man who would not leave him alone, blocking his path, trying to hassle him into submission.
‘Leave me the fuck alone!’ he shouted.
His wife glared at me as I walked by, shrouded in the djellaba and burqa – so disapproving of this encasement of women.
We dodged all the tourist stands, the rug shops, the carved goods and leather store, and entered a passageway, whereupon we came into a bazaar within a bazaar. Here there were men in suits, elderly gentlemen in immaculate djellabas; venerable establishments dealing in gold, a smell of old established Marrakesh money hidden away from the bleating, cheap commerce of the mercantile arena which Westerners saw.
Aatif steered us into a warehouse in which a young guy of around thirty – dressed in a black sweatshirt and sweatpants adorned with the Armani label, Versace sunglasses, and a lot of bling on his wrists, including a big Breitling – greeted him with a curt nod. He had a cellphone in one hand and another on the table in front of him, on which there also lay a calculator, a packet of Marlboros and a lighter that looked as though it was made of solid gold. He eyed me warily, pointing to me while asking Aatif why I was here. Or, at least, I presumed that’s what he said, as Aatif began to explain (and I’d heard it so often I could almost follow the Arabic) the sad story of this poor girl behind the veil. Then his tone shifted and became plaintive, and I sensed (from his gestures and the sadness in his voice) that he was recounting the robbery and the reason why he had arrived empty-handed. The guy lit up a cigarette, made a point of not offering Aatif one, and blew smoke in my friend’s face. I loathed his arrogance – how dare that preening little man use his petty power to lord it over Aatif? Why should an honest man’s struggle to survive be seen as a sign of weakness? I could only begin to imagine what this guy was like around women, how he treated them as contemptuous objects, and how perhaps (this was wishful thinking on my part) he was inadequate with them. How I longed to pull off my burqa and attack him for his cruelty. But I knew that would be a disastrous call so I sat there silently as he berated Aatif and, with a dismissive hand motion, as if swatting a fly away, told him to leave his office.
The Heat of Betrayal Page 29