Rachel drove on, her destination ten kilometers beyond, somewhere in the southwest. Beyond the square the road continued for a few hundred feet before the asphalt stopped abruptly. No dirt track replaced it. Rachel stopped the car and got out. A dirty cloud of flies circled her head and came to rest on the windshield. She gazed into the distance. Two faint trails led north and northwest. To the southwest Rachel saw a plain of sand and stone that gave no sign that anyone had ever set foot on it.
She looked back toward the town. Two men, one wearing a white robe, the other in khaki uniform, stood in front of the gendarmerie, watching her. She climbed into the Land-Rover, noted the number of kilometers recorded below the speedometer, and drove slowly into the southwest. The flies stuck to the windshield like barnacles.
There were no clouds in the sky but that didn’t mean it was blue. It seemed to be filled with fine dust made honey-colored by the warm sun. In the golden light her eyes were unsure of distance and direction. She took a pocket compass from her bag and set it on the dashboard.
When she had gone ten kilometers she got the binoculars out of the glove compartment and stood on the roof of the car. She scanned the world around her. Nothing moved. There was no sign of any building, old or new. On the northern horizon rounded hills rose out of the plain. To the west it continued unchanged, stony and flat. In the south fields of sand appeared, covering parts of the rocky surface, and beyond she saw columns of dunes marching into Algeria.
In her notebook Rachel drew a diagram of what she had seen, and then began a methodical reconnaissance of the area. Using the place she had stopped as a mid-point she made a two-kilometer square in the desert. When she had completed it she began a second, twice the size.
On the southern leg she began encountering sand dunes. Keeping to the shallow sandy patches, she picked her way between them until she was blocked by a long line of dunes, running east to west without a gap. She drove west until she found a dune less imposing than the rest, then circled back across the sand. From a distance of about three hundred yards she accelerated toward it, the tires whining at the lack of traction. Nevertheless when the jeep hit the dune it was moving fast, fast enough to twist its way to the top and drop off the other side. It landed with a heavy jolt that knocked the wind out of Rachel. When she had recovered she got out and crawled under the chassis. Nothing dangled.
She stood up and brushed the sand from her clothes. A man was singing. He sounded like Frank Sinatra. He was singing “Fly Me to the Moon.” Frank was fighting a large smothering string section for possession of the melody, and losing. The sound of the battle came closer.
A huge yellow smile appeared at the crest of a dune. It belonged to a camel that lumbered over, looked right through her and kept on going. The man sitting on top, resting his bare feet on the camel’s neck, wasn’t as friendly. He didn’t turn in her direction at all. He was too busy adjusting the aerial on the big overseas radio that hung on a strap from the small leather saddle, beside a long and very old rifle. Frank wondered about the quality of life on Jupiter and Mars.
“Wait,” Rachel called, trying French and English.
The camel halted. The two heads swiveled slowly. Two sets of eyes rested on her, one brown, one yellow. She walked close to the camel, but not too close, and spoke to the rider in French.
“I am looking for an old settlement called Camp Siegfried,” she said. The camel made a loud sniffing sound and turned away, but the man kept his eyes on her. His skin was very dark, and tinted indigo by the dye in the robe he wore. He had prominent cheekbones and a thin-lipped mouth. “Campement Siegfried,” she repeated.
The fine mouth opened and the man spoke rapidly for a minute or two in a language Rachel did not know. He ended on an interrogative note. She squatted and with her finger drew a picture in the sand. A flat-topped blockhouse. A tent. A flagpole with a flag sticking out at the top. A circle around it all to indicate the wall.
The man laughed happily. He switched off the radio and made a clicking sound in the back of his mouth. The camel knelt. Gracefully he slipped down, landing lightly close beside her. He drew several new buildings in the sand, and outside the circle added a few palm trees. The palm trees pleased him. He chuckled to himself and drew a few more. Against one of them he sat a little stick figure. That did it. He clapped his hands like a four-year-old and laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. After a while she joined in. Gradually the fit subsided. He dabbed at his eyes with the tips of his finely shaped fingers.
“Where is it?” she asked in French. He smiled at her encouragingly. Rachel assumed a questioning expression and pointed with exaggerated tentativeness in different directions. He began to like this game as well as the other. Each new direction struck him as funnier than the last. He was getting set to go into the hand-clapping bit.
“Stop it,” Rachel said in an irritated tone.
His laughter ceased immediately. Gently he laid his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the northeast. With a slow gesture he raised one of his beautiful hands and pointed in the direction she had come from.
“Merci,” Rachel said, clasping her hands in a thanking gesture.
She thought of one more question: “How far?” She repeated it a couple of times. He pointed again with the same elegance. She shook her head, and held her hands apart as if she were telling fish stories. He giggled and held his hands apart, a little wider.
“Merci,” she said again.
From an inner pocket the man drew several grimy dates and offered them to her. Because she had read that refusing food was a cardinal rudeness in the eyes of primitive people she took one and ate it, expecting him to do the same. But he returned the rest of the dates to his pocket.
“Merci,” she said again, holding out her hand. Instantly she saw that he did not want to shake it. He clasped the tips of her fingers for a moment, stepped on the neck of the camel and sat lightly against the hump. The camel stood, bobbed its head and strode away. Two French female voices began discussing their favorite detergent.
Rachel made a detour of several kilometers to the west before she found a path through the dunes. Then she drove in the direction the man had pointed, stopping several times to look about with the binoculars. She saw nothing resembling the drawing in the sand, nor any sign at all of human existence, until she re-entered Mhamid. He had sent her back to the town. A late afternoon breeze nipped at the Moroccan flag on the pole in front of the police station.
Rachel parked by the hotel and carried her handbag and suitcase inside. A ceiling fan in the tiny lobby revolved with barely enough speed to keep the flies off it. Behind a linoleum-covered counter a pale woman slightly older than Rachel was pouring Pernod into a glass. She wore no make-up but compensated by what she did to her hair. It was twisted into the kind of knots found on uncombed poodles, and reddened with henna. The eyebrows had been plucked away so there was no problem getting them to match.
Rachel asked for a room and the woman opened a stained register and asked her to sign. The way the woman squinted at the entry Rachel made in the book suggested that the Pernod was not her first of the day.
“Ah, Madame Monette,” she said. “You are French? Me too.”
“No. American,” Rachel said.
“Truly? You speak French very well.”
“Thank you. My husband was French.” Rachel had not spoken more than a few words to anyone in the past three days and she found herself becoming voluble.
“So were two of mine,” said the woman, with a rueful laugh.
“They’re not dead?”
“Oh, no,” said the woman, “in fact I was not really married to either of them. I only told people I was because I am a respectable woman.” She drained her glass, found a somewhat clean one behind the counter and filled the two of them. “Here,” she said, sliding the new glass across the counter. “It’s on the house.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s nothing. How often do I get to talk to another Europe
an woman?” Rachel let the inaccuracy pass. The woman gulped more Pernod. “We don’t have many visitors at this time of year.”
“When is the busy season?” Rachel asked.
“Never.” She patted Rachel’s hand. Her fingernails came in several lengths and colors. She looked at Rachel with small eyes that probably were not very smart even when they were sober.
“It’s good to see a European once in a while, instead of all these stinking Arabs.”
The door opened and a handsome young Moroccan came in. He appeared not to have heard the woman’s remark, but she suddenly became nervous anyway and rubbed her fingers on the rim of the glass.
“Bonjour,” he said in a way that included both of them. Then to Rachel he added, in French, “Be careful. Madame Ratelle likes to turn people into drunkards like herself.”
“Be nice in front of the lady, Rashid,” the woman said. “She’s come all the way from America. Give me a kiss.”
The young man ignored her. “What state in America?” he asked Rachel in good English.
“Massachusetts.”
“Oh, New England,” he said.
“Yes, have you been there?”
“Not yet,” Rashid said. “But I lived for a year in England.”
Madame Ratelle’s eyes moved quickly but uncomprehendingly from one to the other, as if she were a spectator for the first time at a tennis match.
Rashid introduced himself and they shook hands.
“I am helping Madame Ratelle with the hotel for a while,” he explained, “but in the summer I must return to Agadir. I’m the assistant to an important British travel agent.”
“What are you saying about me?” Madame Ratelle asked sharply.
“Nothing. I was telling Madame of my work with Agatours.”
Madame Ratelle laughed sarcastically. Rashid turned his back on her.
“How long have you been in Morocco?” he asked Rachel, resuming the conversation in English.
“Three days.”
“And you are already here? Most tourists never get this far at all. Where did you enter the country?”
“Casablanca.”
“Ah, Casablanca,” Rashid said, smiling broadly. “I love Casablanca. ‘The problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this world. You’re getting on that plane.’ Fantastic. I’ve seen it twenty times. I adore that phrase ‘hill of beans.’ Are there many like it in English?”
“Some,” Rachel said.
“Tell me.”
“Ocean of tears.” It was the first one that came to mind. His face grew solemn.
Rachel reached for her suitcase. “I’d like to go to my room now,” she said.
“Of course. You must be tired. I’ll show you the way.” Rashid turned to Madame Ratelle. “Number eight,” he said in French.
“I’ve put madame in number twelve,” said Madame Ratelle defensively.
“Why? The hotel is empty. Give me number eight.”
She handed him the key and he carried Rachel’s suitcase up the stairs.
“Here we are,” he said, pushing open the door to number eight. The floor was purple linoleum, the bed was lumpy, the bedspread had holes in it burned by cigarettes, there were no pillows. The heat was so stifling that the flies were enervated.
Rashid crossed the room, pushed aside the yellow plastic curtains and opened the window.
“It’s not Claridge’s,” he said.
“That’s a good thing. I can’t afford Claridge’s.”
Rashid laughed and laughed. She seemed to have that effect on the locals. “I adore witty women,” he said, turning his dark liquid eyes on her. They all do, thought Rachel.
“We have dinner in the dining room at eight o’clock,” Rashid said. “Whatever else one thinks of Madame Ratelle she is an excellent cook.”
“I’ll be there.”
“The bathroom is at the end of the hall.”
He seemed reluctant to leave the room. She wondered if he expected a tip.
“Have you come to see the rock drawings?” he asked.
“I didn’t know there were any.”
“Oh, beautiful ones. Crocodiles, elephants, lions—they’re everywhere.” He waved his arm toward the window. “Professor DePoe from Paris has been here studying them for the whole week. I can introduce you to him.”
“Does he know the terrain very well?”
“Yes,” he said, slightly puzzled, “But not as well as I do. I’ve been working as his guide since he got here. I was born in Zagora. But I’m not Berber. I’m pure Arab.”
“Have you ever heard of something called Camp Siegfried? In the southwest?” Rachel asked.
“No. There is no such place around here,” Rashid said.
“Are you certain?” Rachel pressed. “It may be in ruins.”
“Ruins?” Rashid’s face brightened. “Yes, there are ruins. I can show you them. They are in the southwest as you say, less than an hour’s drive. I can take you to them.”
“Can we go now?” Rachel asked, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.
He laughed. “It will be dark soon. The ruins will still be there in the morning.”
“All right,” Rachel agreed.
“You may be disappointed,” Rashid warned. “There is not much to see. It’s not like the rock drawings. And it is not called Siegfried. They are the ruins of the fort of the slave traders.”
Rachel felt her excitement ebb. “They sound much too old to be what I’m looking for.”
Rashid looked at her closely. “There are still slave traders in Morocco, madame.”
15
Rachel awoke soon after dawn. The hotel was quiet. She took the tiny threadbare towel from the wall hook and walked softly down the hall to the bathroom. Behind the closed door of number five she heard the low murmur of a male voice, and then Madame Ratelle saying distinctly and angrily, “You are going nowhere until I tell you.” The male voice murmured again in a higher pitch. Rachel went into the bathroom.
Rachel liked long showers, but not in cold salt water. When she went downstairs she was wide awake. In the dining room Madame Ratelle was serving sticky buns to a bald, plump European man who didn’t need them. Rashid sat alone in a corner stirring his coffee with a distracted deliberation that suggested he might go on stirring it forever. Somehow he managed to appear quite un-American in his tight white jeans and black nylon jacket with “New York Yankees” written across the front.
“Good morning,” Madame Ratelle said with loud cheeriness. “You slept well?”
“Yes, thank you,” Rachel said.
“You see?” Madame Ratelle said to the bald man as if Rachel had settled a dispute. “Our guests sleep well.” The bald man spread a thick coat of butter on top of a sticky bun and took a big bite.
“I’m trying to persuade Professor DePoe to move in here,” Madame Ratelle explained to Rachel. “He insists on staying with the caid instead of me, his own countryman. They get lice, people who sleep in the caid’s beds, every one of them.”
Rashid rose and left the room, leaving his cup full. Madame Ratelle turned to watch him go. Spots of pink appeared on her pale cheeks. Although she stood by his elbow Professor DePoe seemed oblivious to her presence. His small blue eyes glanced quickly at Rachel before he reached for another sticky bun.
Madame Ratelle showed Rachel to a table and gave her a tangerine, coffee, and sticky buns.
“So Rashid is taking you to see some ruins,” she said suspiciously.
“That’s right.” Rachel peeled the tangerine.
Professor DePoe twisted in his chair. “There are no ruins here, madame, in the strict sense of the word.” His French was imperiously clear Parisian, but difficult to understand when his jaws were glued together with sticky bun. “We speak of rock engravings,” he added.
“I’ve been told of ruins nearby, dating from the Second World War perhaps,” Rachel said. “Have you ever heard of anything like that around here?”
“Very strange,” said Professor DePoe, shaking his head. “You must tell me if you find something.”
Outside, Rashid was putting things into the Land-Rover—two shovels and four long strips of corrugated steel.
“Sand ladders,” he told Rachel. “Never go into the desert without them.”
She let Rashid drive. He went in the same general direction she had gone the day before. He was a poor driver. Once when the jeep began to lose traction in a patch of loose sand he put his foot on the brake and almost buried them. But Rachel did not think it was a good time to give him driving tips. His face was puffed and sullen, and when he wasn’t biting his lower lip with his upper teeth he let the lower teeth go to work on the upper one.
“When did you say you were going back to Agadir?” Rachel asked after a few kilometers, remembering something he had seemed happy about.
“I’m not going back,” he replied gloomily. “Never.”
“But what about your job, assisting the travel agent?”
“She doesn’t want me anymore,” Rashid said. “I am stuck down here in the desert.”
“How long were you with the travel agency?”
“Eleven months.”
“With that experience I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding a job at another agency,” she said encouragingly.
Rashid laughed bitterly.
When they reached the line of sand dunes in the south Rashid made no attempt to penetrate, as Rachel had done, but followed them toward the west. In a little less than three kilometers they came to a narrow oued which cut straight across the plain from the stark gray hills in the north and disappeared among the dunes. Rashid drove the jeep onto its hard-packed bed, and followed it. The oued wound a serpentine course through the dunes before emerging on a small flat plain bounded on three sides by the dunes and on the fourth by a stark outcrop of russet-colored rock rising sharply from the desert floor.
The Fury of Rachel Monette Page 12