–You mean at the camp? he said. –Don’t do anything stupid.
Victoria was on her phone, sitting on her desk among files and papers, glasses pushed up into her curls. –What did you expect? she said when Kate had finished her story, and then, more kindly: –I know, you want to try. So did we, at the beginning.
Es una tonta, she would probably tell Javier later. A spoiled kid, una caprichosa.
–Look, you want a coffee? I have some news.
Zainab, it turned out, had remembered the name of the boy’s village, or so she claimed. She’d told Javier so at the dinner the evening before. In the bar across the street Victoria ordered two cafés solos and sat down. –She will tell only if we take her to ferry to Morocco.
–She’s blackmailing us, then.
Victoria tore open a paper tube of sugar, shrugging. –She want to deliver baby there.
–But why?
In Zainab’s position the last place Kate would have gone was back to Morocco.
–She say is only bad luck here.
–Then why doesn’t she go to the police and get deported?
–She thinks they beat her. Or kill her. Last month they are putting man on plane to Tunisia, he dies. Victoria shrugged again, as if such run-of-the-mill tragedy was the way of the world now. Which it probably was.
–The baby’ll have Spanish citizenship if she stays, won’t it?
A myth, unfortunately, or so Victoria said, though pregnant women arrived every day believing it was true. –Baby will be Moroccan. But Lukáš will help, and others. She is a widow, educated… Victoria stared out the window, as if already marshalling arguments against an adamantine bureaucracy. –She perhaps have chance. If she tell good story.
–You’re not going to take her, are you?
–¡Claro que no! Victoria looked horrified. –It is dangerous. For us, of course, but also for her. If she is caught… She gave Kate a sharp, narrowed stare. –She think we can get whatever we want. Especially you. You would do same thing, no, in her position?
–So she thinks I’ll help her do this? Kate stared back, thrilled at Zainab’s audacity, at what she had seen, or intuited, in Kate.
–She has friend in Casablanca, woman, American woman. Victoria pushed away the half-drunk coffee, frowning. –She say she will go there.
–But if she doesn’t have a passport…
–She will find truck, Moroccan truck, going on ferry. Ask driver to hide her. Victoria threw a handful of coins on the table, over Kate’s protestations. –You can pay when we learn name of village. If we learn. Javi goes tomorrow with doctor who works with us, Zainab likes her. Javi will ask again.
Finding the clearing on her own wasn’t easy, though she remembered the turnoff, some ten kilometres or so beyond the town, the road that wound steeply upward and narrowed into packed earth. Though it lengthened beyond all reason and she almost turned back. She passed no one except a boy on a mountain bike, flying down. After several wrong guesses, the clearing at last revealed itself and she pulled over, breathless with risk in the rental car that advertised her as a visitor.
The children came running before she’d turned off the ignition. She passed out several chocolate bars from the stash in the glove compartment to small grabbing hands. Two or three older boys stood at a wary distance, smoking. From the trunk she hauled out her backpack and the box of groceries she’d bought just before leaving town. Those who’d lost out on the chocolate clamoured round her, shoving and pushing.
–Can you help, please? she called to the distant boys, but no one moved. Fortunately here was Nagmeldin, coming down the path with a limp Kate hadn’t noticed before.
–I thought you could use — you know. Could hand this out to everyone. She gestured weakly at the box, which Nagmeldin stooped for and swung to his shoulder. The children, ebullient, danced round, the boys throwing mock punches at each other. They’d only gone a few steps when Nagmeldin made a chopping motion toward her, hand held sideways.
–Okay. You go now.
She stopped, stupid with surprise. He hadn’t even said thank you. She was a friend, wasn’t she? — a friend of friends? Or did he think it was dangerous, her presence — though it was a risk when the Centro people came too. The children drifted after him, glancing back with cool indifference.
She wasn’t leaving, of course — she had a delivery to make. In her daypack were little jars of preserved lemon, Moroccan spices with exotic names — karfa, skinjbir, tahmira — that she’d pounced on in the supermarket. An exchange of sorts, though she wouldn’t put it like that to Zainab. Nagmeldin might be annoyed, angry even, but he couldn’t stop her.
She’d gone only a few steps farther when Zainab herself burst out of the trees, panting, clutching a plastic bag to her chest. –You came! You came! She pushed past an astonished Kate and broke into an awkward run. The children surged behind them. Zainab, reaching the car, threw herself in and locked the door.
–I can’t take you, Zainab, I can’t! Kate shouted, arriving seconds too late and seizing the handle.
But Zainab would not get out even when Kate got the door open. The children laughed and gibbered and danced about, enchanted with the absurdity of it all. Kate implored, threatened, grabbed Zainab’s arm and pulled. Zainab herself sat in a bubble of calm, looking straight ahead.
–All right. I’ll take you as far as the town. Understand?
No response. Kate swore softly under her breath. She started the car and swung round onto the road in the direction of town. The children raced after them, dropping back into the boil of dust as the car gained speed.
–You came, Zainab repeated simply. –Since I arrive I pray, all day, every day. And now, insh’allah, I will get home.
–You understand, don’t you? Kate said when they reached the junction with the main road. –That I’m dropping you in town?
Ahead of them was the highway, glinting with those trick pools of water in the afternoon sun. It wasn’t her problem, it was Zainab’s. She’d take her to the Centro and ask them to reason with her. Get her out of the car, at least.
Then she remembered it was Friday. The Centro closed at one p.m.
–Where were you? Gavin said irritably. He was lying on the bed, reading a paperback. Held out his watch, as if she could read it from that distance. –It’s almost four.
–I know, I’m sorry, I thought I’d be back earlier. Though she hadn’t in fact said so. She kicked a sandal off viciously. –There’s a woman in the car.
He rose on an elbow, staring.
–She’s from that camp. She wants to go back to Morocco.
The hell with it, trying to be careful.
–She got in the car and I couldn’t get her out. Her voice rose. –Don’t ask questions, Gavin.
He’d swung his feet to the floor and stood up. She stood up straighter; that way they were even. –She got in the car, he said carefully, slowly. –And what? We’re supposed to take her somewhere?
–She won’t get out. She’s pregnant, Kate added, as if that was a factor in her inability to remove Zainab, which perhaps it was. –I parked two blocks away. She doesn’t know where we’re staying.
–Suppose she’s gone to the police to report you? He stood with his arms folded, judgemental. –Or that Centro? If you’re going behind their backs.
It hadn’t occurred to her that Zainab might believe she had information she could use.
–She’s afraid of them. How dare he criticize her good deed? –Besides, I took some food up there, to the camp.
–In our rental car. With easily traceable plates.
Maybe he was jealous. At least she’d tried. Taken a risk an earlier Gavin would have applauded, back when he’d talked about working for Doctors Without Borders after medical school. –Why do you care, anyway? she said wildly, incontinently. –You didn’t before.
Gavin flung the paperback on the bed — he seemed to be making a habit of flinging things — and grabbed his daypack.
–We
’d better go find her, he said. –Make sure she’s okay.
She was where Kate had left her, sitting in the shaded passenger seat, staring straight ahead. Gavin, bending down at the partly opened window, made her startle. He said something that Kate, a short distance away, feeling small and helpless, couldn’t hear. But she heard Zainab’s reply.
–You take me to ferry, please. For the first time Zainab’s voice trembled, then solidified. –Only to ferry, nothing more. Please. I am begging.
She was staring up at Gavin, crumpling a corner of shawl in her hands. They’d trapped him into something, his wife and Zainab — that must be what he was thinking. He gave an almost imperceptible shrug. Walked round to the driver’s side, body rigid, face held away.
They drove with the windows rolled down, Kate breathing sea air deeply, in and out. Zainab sat with her fingers splayed on her belly, her posture steely. –I am thinking, she announced out of nowhere, about names. For baby.
What did she think this was, a Sunday drive? –We’re taking a big risk, you know, Kate said, her voice shaking. Gavin shot her a warning glance in the rearview.
–Karim if it is boy, Zainab said, as though Kate hadn’t spoken. –It means giving, generous. And Abdellatif after my husband. Abdellatif — I don’t know in English. Means something like servant of Allah.
–We’ll drop you, Gavin said (he was carrying on the other conversation, the one they ought to be having), on the outskirts of town. That’s safer for all of us. You can make your own way from there.
But Zainab wanted to disappear into crowds somewhere, somewhere no one would notice. The back of Gavin’s neck reddened, though this time Kate agreed with her. The sun bore down on them, a dagger, striking sparks.
–I am very angry, at first, Zainab said firmly. Angry at her desperate situation? Her husband’s death? –With Allah, I mean. After what happened to me, to us. Then, you know, I accept. I accept because my husband would say to do.
Kate glanced at her, appalled. She was still obeying her husband — she, an educated widow? Zainab laughed unexpectedly and threw up her hands.
–I find myself on very strange journey. Not here, to Spain — I mean here. She pressed a hand to her heart. –I meet my husband at wedding, big family wedding. My family already has picked out someone, very nice, engineer, good-looking.
She lifted her palms up, as if she found her own behaviour inexplicable. –But then I meet Abdellatif, he is son of my mother’s cousin. My family is horrified. He is too young for me, only twenty-two, he is not educated like me at university, he is carpenter, son of a shaikh. A teacher of Islam, a Sufi. My father is professor at University of Al-Karaouine, he does not practise religion.
Zainab let her hands crumple on her thighs, saddened perhaps by her own conduct, or her father’s. –I cannot help. I am in love. So we run away, we are married secretly. We are together only a year but I learn a lot from him.
A year. So little time. What did Allah think he was doing, leaving Zainab to fend for herself? –Who knows why? Zainab said, as if answering Kate’s question. –But at least I have baby. I hope is boy like his father. But I am happy for girl, too.
–Then why don’t you stay here? Gavin said, in his blunt way. –What are you going back for? The road was climbing again, the shot silk of the Mediterranean spread out below them.
–I hate here. That air of hostility, flooding the car. –We live, back there, like animals. Lower than animals. Only Victoria and Javier help.
–And me, Kate said quietly.
–Yes, and you. You and your husband. You are my — she pressed her hand to her heart again — my mala’ikah. My angels.
Gavin would be rolling his eyes, so she rushed into her question. –Before you go you must tell me the name of that village.
Zainab, puzzled, spread her hands. –I do not —
–The boy. That boy from the Rif Mountains — you said —
–Ah yes. She smiled at Kate, turning round to touch her knee. –I think was Bouazzoun. Near Taounate. Or was it Bourdoud? She paused, frowning. –My great-grandfather came from there, long ago. Yes, Bourdoud, I am sure of it now. Tiny place just past Aïn Aïcha.
They dropped her on a crowded street in the city centre, car horns shrilling behind them. Zainab walked away without looking back, just another Arab woman in a djellaba and headscarf. Why hadn’t Kate asked Zainab the name of the place they’d left from, she and the boy? Unless, of course, she’d simply made it up. Not the village, but the fact of the encounter.
–We can’t just abandon her, Gavin said, watching her go. –Suppose the police stop her? Or, I don’t know, someone harasses her.
Over Kate’s objections they followed at a distance until they lost her, turning down an alleyway. In a café, picking at a sandwich, Gavin was silent, so Kate typed the names Zainab had given her into her phone. Nothing, though she tried several spellings. Too small, probably. Tiny sunbaked places where old men sat smoking kif.
–We can’t go back, Gavin said.
–You mean the hotel?
–I mean home. Not until we look for that boy’s family.
He let out a long slow breath and stood up.
–We’re in it now, aren’t we? We brought her here. She decided for us.
They managed to get an evening ferry after a passenger with a reservation failed to show. Gavin went off to wander the decks, or perhaps keep an eye out for Zainab, while Kate stayed in the car. In the next lane a boy in his teens was staring down at her from the cab of a truck lettered in Arabic. Thin brown face, dark-rimmed eyes — Azemmur himself. He grinned and flickered his tongue, wetting his lips. Made a circle of thumb and forefinger and jabbed the other forefinger through, back and forth.
Not Azemmur after all. Or Azemmur as he might have been, flagrant, strutting. She saw the lips parted on sharp white teeth as she turned away.
–You need advice, perhaps? Help?
Some blond foreigner in sunglasses and Moroccan shirt had stopped beside them under the awning of the café. They were drinking qahwa helib, café au lait, and trying to wake up; the cries of the muezzins had woken them at three a.m. The man gestured at the map Kate had spread out on the table. Did he know where Bourdoud was, she asked, near Aïn Aïcha? They were looking for someone. She brought out the sketch of the tattoo.
–You must not go to the Rif, the man said. He was German, or at least German-born; his name was Henk. He had lived in Morocco for thirty years. –The police will arrest you. They will think you are there to buy marijuana. Your story about the boy — he frowned, drawing down his mouth — they will not believe you. Men in the Rif do not wear tattoos.
Meanwhile, would they like to join him for breakfast? For the best khobz belbid — French toast, made with orange juice — in the city?
The restaurant, a ten-minute walk away, faced a square with a blue-tiled fountain where men stood or sat in groups, smoking, gesticulating, drinking mint tea. –Here, Henk said softly as they ate, is where you come if you want to leave. Where the fixers find you a way out. He nodded in the direction of Europe. –But it’s expensive. Two thousand American dollars at least. Fifteen thousand dirhams. Your boy’s family would have pooled their savings, asked relatives. Sold more kif.
Most of the men wouldn’t talk, but a younger one about Kate’s age, eager to practise English, told them the boy would have met the boat on some empty patch of beach farther down the coast. Near Fnideq, maybe, or Oued Laou, and probably at night. –Too many coast guard here, he explained. He himself had tried crossing, twice, and been sent back. He was from a poor village; there were no jobs there. Yes, he would try again when he’d saved the money. He eked out a living doing odd jobs. He looked out at the Strait of Gibraltar, at what Henk called the Bab al-Maghreb, the Gate of the Maghreb.
–Everyone knows the risks, the younger man said. –But to die once is better than dying ten times in the face of your parents’ pity.
Oued Laou was only sixty kilometres away, but a drive
of at least two hours because of road construction. They set out in the car, the three of them, in the stinking heat, Henk having offered to come along as translator and guide. Suicidal motorbikes, their riders’ shirts flapping behind them, zipped in and out. A donkey plodded past in the dust, laden with electric fans. Across the Alborán Sea, Spain shimmered dizzily.
Henk was vague about what he did. People hired him to make maquettes for building projects, designs, that sort of thing — enough to live well in Moroccan terms. He was fifty-six. In Germany there was nothing left for him. What kept him here? The intensity, the way people lived every moment as if it was their last. He pointed out the window, naming trees, birds, even dust-covered weeds. Germany lived, still, under the shadow of the war his father had fought in, on the wrong side.
On the edge of town, almost four hours later, they were directed to a wooden doorway and a man in a shabby brown suit, slender and wary, who sat drinking coffee. Yes, he could get someone to Spain, for the right price, though he brushed away the tattoo. Mille des personnes, he said wearily, translating into Spanish for good measure. He couldn’t possibly remember them all. Yes, some of them died, but that was their fate, or the fault of the boat owners. He was simply supplying a service. No, he didn’t want to go himself. The Spaniards had thrown them out, centuries ago, though the Arabs had given them everything — mathematics, running water, the names of stars. There was gratitude for you!
Gavin, over lamb tagine and wine, argued for going back. –We’re not getting anywhere. If we leave now we might just make an evening ferry.
–But we’ve only just started. Haven’t we, Henk? We’re not even in the Rif yet.
–Excuse us, Gavin said, rudely, before Henk could answer, and walked Kate outside.
–Kate. Katie. He took her hands in his. –I know you want to help, and it’s wonderful of you. I know I said we should come. But it’s pointless, what we’re doing, don’t you see?
Hour of the Crab Page 3