Hour of the Crab

by Patricia Robertson

  –A moment, please, said a female voice, in overly enunciated English, and a deadbolt grated. –Pase, pase. I am Victoria. The top of her vigorous curls came not quite to Kate’s chin; the hand with its tapered vermilion nails was as small as a child’s. –We are firebombed a few months ago. That is why the lock. She laughed explosively as though it was all a joke. –I used to be journalist in Barcelona. Catalan and a migrante sympathizer — that is two for one, no?

  In the heat Kate had become slow and baffled.

  –You find body, yes, I understand, Victoria said firmly, and took Kate’s arm. In the tiny office upstairs she pushed Kate into a chair, gently, as though dealing with an invalid. –I am sorry. Very — what is word? — disturbing. I know.

  –There’s a camp, isn’t there, Kate said, and held the glass of cold water Victoria brought her to her forehead. –Where they process people. The woman at the pension told me.

  –And why do you care? Victoria spoke without rancour, sitting on the edge of her desk. –It is not for sightseeing. For taking photos.

  –I don’t — I mean, shouldn’t I care? Shouldn’t everyone? She took a deep, shuddering breath; it wasn’t an answer. –I had to. That’s all.

  Victoria grunted deep in her throat, like an animal. –They escape the camp, if they can. It is like a jail only worse. Then there are others, they land in secret, no one sees them. She turned and pointed through the window at the hills above them. –Up there they are hiding. Many, many. Her English seemed to be slipping further in the emotion of the moment. –In the trees, in caves. It is shaming, vergonzoso. Not right.

  A belated honeymoon, Gavin joked; they hadn’t been able to afford one four years earlier when they got married. Before coming they’d pored over the pictures of the Alhambra — the tilework, the filigree, the sunstruck fountains. The names that came from some jasmine-scented dream: the Court of the Lions, the Hall of the Two Sisters, the Gate of Pomegranates. Though the truth was it had been built by Christian slaves.

  –There’s an express train leaving this afternoon at two. Gavin passed her the bag of croissants he’d bought for breakfast at the bakery across the street. –And I got the name of a pension in Granada from a guy waiting to be served, he’d just been there.

  He held out the guidebook, opened at those glowing photos. –The Alhambra’s less crowded at night, it says here.

  He was glowing himself, enthusiastic, the tiredness that lived on his face drained away. How she wanted to feel the same! Instead she said –Why don’t we go tomorrow instead?

  –Oh, for god’s sake. The guidebook landed, with more force than necessary, on the bed between them. –It’s that camp, isn’t it.

  –There’s others, too, in hiding. I think if I went —

  –It isn’t just about that boy. It can’t be.

  –It’s about — Would she know what it was about, if she went? If she met the survivors face to face? –You go, she said, if you want. It’s okay with me. Really. Maybe we can go again, later on.

  –There’s nothing — you don’t even speak the language. He flung up his hands in exasperation, like the police officer had. –Oh, hell. The hell with it. I’ll go on my own.

  Victoria and a man called Javier took her in the Centro’s dusty van. Javier — thin, stooped, wedge of black hair above glasses — turned out to be a grad student at the University of Málaga, studying sociology and community development. He shook hands with almost religious fervour.

  –We are mostly volunteer, here at the Centro, Victoria explained. –We get money, little bits, from the parroquia, parish I think you say, from other organizations, from people on the street even. That exploding laugh again. –Actually I am married to a migrant. She grinned at Kate’s startled look. –Only, back then we say “refugees.” People forget.

  He was Czech, apparently; his family had escaped in ’68 after the Soviets invaded. She inclined her head, ironic. –Victoria Beltrán Sokol, a tu servicio. Lukáš has his own law practice. Very useful. She pressed a thumb downward in the air, as if pinning some squirming official. Drove fast, one small foot flooring the accelerator, while Javier shouted history from the back seat.

  –Eight years ago almost, we find, me and my brother, we find bodies, like you. At another beach, more east. He jerked his head in the direction of the dust cloud swirling behind them. –Eleven. Yes, eleven, all at once. So we form, me and Luis and Victoria, she is his girlfriend —

  –Ex-girlfriend, Victoria corrected, swinging the wheel hard — a huddle of sheep billowed round the curve. She raised an eyebrow in the rearview. –Really, Javi. Such ancient history.

  –We form support group, also pressure group, Javi said firmly, unrepentant. –We bring food, clothes, find doctors. Try to change laws. The road was twisting itself higher into the hills; Javier caught hold of the back of Kate’s seat as Victoria took another curve with abandon. –Now more come, all the time, some people say is our fault. I tell to them, okay, what you want? We take them back to beach and push in water?

  –At first we try to find jobs and apartments. So they can become legal. Victoria threw up a voluble, despairing hand. –All are traumatized. And no one wants them.

  They were still climbing; Javier, turning, pointed to the glitter of sea far below them. –Many end up down there. That is biggest cemetery. And it has no lápidas — Victoria, how do you–?

  –Tombstones, Victoria said.

  They pulled into a sort of rough clearing, high up in the pines. As Kate got out the cooler air shocked her into alertness. Children in various stages of undress were appearing between the trees, holding plastic bowls and bottles. A clump of them stared at her in silence; others chattered round Javier, tugging at his sleeves. Victoria bent down and picked up a small girl in a dirty pink T-shirt.

  –Khadija had a birthday last week, didn’t you, Khadija? Victoria held up three waggling fingers. Khadija pulled her thumb from her mouth and held up three of her own, smiling uncertainly. Beyond the children dim adults moved, shadows in the deeper shadow. Plastic sheeting had been strung up here and there, bits of cardboard wedged underneath to make walls.

  –Can you imagine, Victoria said. –Living in the hills like this, eating squirrels and sparrows. She shrugged, turning the gesture into a jaunty bouncing that made Khadija giggle. A kind of stupor hung over the place. Javier, children still hanging from his arms, dispensed band-aids and aspirin to a few adults, their faces guarded, expressionless. –You are here, they are more cautious, Victoria explained.

  A tall greying man in too-short pants, his face an ashen black, stepped forward. –This is Nagmeldin, Victoria said as Kate held out a hand he didn’t take — from fear? Embarrassment?

  –He is from Sudan. He has told us different stories, how he got here. Nagmeldin said something in Spanish; Victoria clicked her tongue between her teeth. –He thinks you are some government official. I explain you are tourist.

  A tourist. A Martha, even if she wasn’t fat and loud. One of the lucky ones, the ones who’d won the lottery of birth and lived across the ocean and ruled the world. She put her hand behind her back, suffocated with shame. How could she tell them about a faceless dead boy, her little act of charity while on holiday? But Nagmeldin was staring at her; had Victoria said something? She looked about for a stick and knelt, drawing what she remembered of the tattoo in the loose earth. Nagmeldin squatted, murmuring, while Victoria translated.

  –There were many young men on his boat. From Sudan, most of them. He says this — Victoria pointed to the drawing — is not from Sudan.

  Nagmeldin rose in one uncoiling movement and began speaking emphatically, hands animated, something to do with papers, documents. He was thirty-nine, too old to have come here. Back home soldiers had killed his wife, his four children, two of his brothers. Home, in fact, no longer existed. He shut his bloodshot eyes and opened them again.

  –He thinks you have come to offer jobs, Victoria said.

  –We ask someone else. Javier retrieve
d his arm from a small boy, nostrils clogged with mucus. –Jamila, maybe — she knows everything.

  An old woman in a headscarf, one arm shrivelled, squatted on the ground, stirring something over an open fire. –We bought them camping stoves but they don’t use, Victoria said, lips thinned in exasperation. She pointed to blackened trees at the edge of the clearing. –Last month a shelter burns. Three of them go to hospital, then the police deport. We are lucky no one dies.

  Kate bent and drew the tattoo on the ground again. Jamila nodded vigorously, jabbing her finger as her husband, small and rheumy-eyed, explained in some mix of languages. –Berber, they say, Victoria said, straightening. –From Morocco, like them. But not on a boy. Only Berber women have tattoos.

  –An illiterate boy from the mountains. The woman who spoke, in startlingly fluid English, stood apart from the others, a tall figure enfolded in a miraculously clean shawl. –The er-Rif Mountains, in the north. Perhaps you know of. Glancing at Kate with contempt, face thin and alert.

  –He was on your boat? Kate said, suddenly riveted.

  But the woman flung a fierce look at Victoria instead. –Why does she care? What is this boy to us? She pulled the shawl tighter, outlining her swollen belly. –The sea took my husband, does she know that? Does she know my child has no father? Her bangled arm swung recklessly round the encampment. –The dead, at least, are at peace. But the living… Who cares about us?

  In the silence Javier stepped forward, offering oranges and milk to the crowd around them. Khadija, given the important task of carrying food to her family, staggered off, beaming. The tall woman folded the items in her shawl with offended dignity; Jamila, still stirring her pot, spat on the ground.

  –Can you tell us more? Victoria said quietly. –About this boy?

  The woman shrugged, looking past them. –My husband tell me to hold onto boat, I don’t know how long, many hours. A fishing boat saves me. We had nothing, no food, nothing. Too many people. The boat tips over.

  –And the boy? Victoria said again, so softly Kate could barely hear her.

  He had been among many others, waiting to cross. The men teased him about his woman’s tattoo. Had boarded some patched-together thing riding low in the water. What had happened to him she had no idea. When Kate asked for his name she flapped her hand, as if brushing off flies. The tattoo had been his mother’s idea, to protect him from jnoun — the evil spirits that entered the body from the ground in a strange country.

  –Azemmur, Jamila said suddenly, insistently, pointing at the drawing again. –Azemmur. The husband said something to the woman with the shawl, who listened with a kind of angry indifference.

  –They say it is olive tree, she said, still staring at something beyond them all. –Olive tree between two mountains, for strength. She shrugged again, dismissing them. –That is name they use in their language, but true name is al-zeitoun. It is Arabs who long ago bring olive tree to this country.

  On the way back Javier drove; Victoria sat slumped in the back seat, hands filled with scrawled notes, photographs, even a résumé, written in what turned out to be badly spelled French. She and Javier talked desultorily in Spanish, of which Kate caught only the odd word: una semana, claro que sí, nada más. She turned toward the back seat when it seemed, for a moment, opportune. –Who is she, that woman? Why’s she here?

  Victoria opened her laptop and began tapping something into it. –She is from wealthy family in Fez. Educated, her father is professor. Victoria squinted at one of the strewn notes, then tapped some more. –Zainab, her name is. She is supposed to marry but she fall in love with cousin. Poor cousin. They run away. Now she want to go back, but she know her family will not accept.

  There she had stood, wrapped in her shawl, holding her milk and oranges above her belly, her face angry and astonished as though she hadn’t expected the world to fail her so dramatically.

  –Tomorrow, Javier said, we organize a big dinner. We take food and cook with them. You want to come?

  She couldn’t risk another argument with Gavin. Besides, they were going to a fiesta in a village whose name she couldn’t remember, farther along the coast, where locals in authentic costumes re-enacted the Christian conquest of the Moors.

  –How many people survived from Zainab’s boat?

  –Who knows? A muscle in Javier’s jaw flickered. –Maybe the police catch others.

  Victoria, behind them, gave another of her animal grunts. –Police hold for sixty days, if they find, and then they deport. The grunt changed to a snorting laugh. –And then there is Zainab. She want to go back but she cannot. Ironic, no?

  Two a.m. and she couldn’t sleep, though Gavin was snoring lightly through his open mouth. This time the boy’s name was Drissa and he came from Mali. He was seventeen years old, with high cheekbones and an insouciant smile. He wore a faded green shirt that was far too big for him and rope-soled sandals. He’d spent twelve days in a boat trying to reach Spain; he was hoping to get a job in the vast plastic greenhouses along the coast. His father was dead, his mother ill, he needed money to support five siblings. With that smile of his, Europe, beckoning and golden, would open its arms and embrace him.

  The bus, when she boarded it that morning — a newer one, apparently, was out of service — had sprung seats and a defeated air. Across the aisle an elderly woman in black pulled her headscarf over her face Arab-style as Kate sat down. She’d left Gavin a note telling him where she was going. Envied him his ability — honed at his job? — to fall immediately into oblivion, to sleep as if he deserved it. Well, he did, didn’t he?

  Despite two cafés solos she felt foggy and dislocated. A crucifix swung wildly from the rearview on each hairpin curve, providing apparent protection, though she already knew she’d arrive safely. Azemmur, as he now was, was depending on her. From the Málaga bus station a taxi bore her through the gold varnish of late morning, needling in and out of heavy traffic. The red Moroccan flag with its five-pointed star hung from a nondescript building in a street filled with consulates — Germany, Ecuador, Ukraine.

  –We arrest those who profit from such trafficking, the consul told her, a tall and dignified man in his precise European suit. He was evidently under the impression she’d travelled all the way from Canada to correct this wrong, a misapprehension she couldn’t seem to alter. –Also we have campaigns on TV, warnings. His finely lashed eyes closed and opened again. –But they think we are lying, the migrants. They believe those who came earlier, who maybe were given amnesty.

  He had decided she was there not to find a name but to lodge a complaint. Tourists, especially North American ones, needed to be appeased, to be comforted like children. She laid before him the tattoo she’d drawn on a piece of paper.

  –Yes, yes, it could be an olive tree. It could be anything. He shrugged. –I grew up in Casablanca, I went to L’Institut d’Études Politiques in Paris. These — he pushed the paper back to her — are village beliefs, you understand. I have no knowledge of such things.

  They occupied the same world, she and the consul. They lived in one world and the boy and Zainab and Nagmeldin in another, and there was no bridge between them. Gavin, sensible Gavin, must be driving, elbow resting on the open window, along the turquoise coast, past those miles of greenhouses under plastic, to that village where they pretended to murder each other with swords and scimitars. She was almost out the door when the consul called after her.

  –Go to the port. There are Moroccans working there. Someone might be able to help.

  A bulky man in a hardhat and safety vest came toward her, eyes performing a practised flick down and up her body. Two o’clock, oppressively hot, men and equipment unloading a container ship tall as a skyscraper, the BF Leticia. The smell of oil, rubber, hot tar.

  –I’m looking for someone, she shouted over the clangs and rumbles. –Someone who might know a boy from the Rif Mountains.

  The foreman, if that was who he was, grinned, white teeth impertinent. –In those mountains are many vi
llages. If you don’t know village… He struck the drawing lightly with his fingers, contemptuous, suspecting something, something sexual; his nostrils flared, avid. –How you know this boy?

  –I found his body. On the beach. He came in one of those boats.

  The nostrils contracted; the man stared, taken aback. –I call Marouane. Okay? He is from er-Rif.

  Marouane could not have been more than fifteen, wiry and underfed; an eyelid flickered nervously. The foreman translated. Men went looking for work, Marouane said, from all the mountain villages — from Azilane and Akchour and Abou Bnar. Brothers, cousins, uncles, now scattered through Germany, Spain, France. In some of the villages only women and children were left. He knew nothing about some Rifi man with a tattoo. If he had died, then Allah had willed it. He stared at her, astonished that an American could travel so far and know so little.

  Gavin was in the bar next door, his head turned, like the other men’s, to the TV and the soccer game. The fiesta had been wonderful, he said without moving; she should have come. People dressed in jewelled turbans, in silver armour incised with crescents, or wearing white tabards with red crosses, carrying dragon-emblazoned shields. The captain of the Moors rode a real camel through the streets. A commercial came on; Gavin, turning, was exuberant, still caught up in the game. –Stupid, that argument, he said. He was being contrite, generous — the Gavin she knew again. –We can go back if you want. The village. It’s a pretty place.

  He didn’t ask about her trip. Perhaps he didn’t want to know. The tight band across her chest loosened a little.

  –Would you mind? she said. –Another day on your own? I have something else to do tomorrow.

  He stared at her, eyes narrowing. –You sure you know what you’re getting into?

  She glanced at the resumed game, pretending interest. –I’ll need the car, she said, not meeting his eyes. –And don’t ask more questions! Playful, a little flirtatious, the way they were when one of them wanted, unaccompanied, to buy a gift for the other. She put a hand out, to soften the abruptness. –You stay here, go to the beach. It doesn’t need two of us. Besides, they already know me.