Lulu in Marrakech

by Diane Johnson

  Water came up over and over in stories and poems (for, as an aspect of tradecraft, I was reading anything that would help me understand the Moroccan culture) as a distrusted force ready to overwhelm, drown, suck away, and engulf its helpless victims, beckoning the distraught to their fates, a “mer dévoreuse,” a metaphor for oblivion. These poems recognized that given the caprices of fate, you might be tidal-waved, rip-tided, broken in the surf: “The thirst of the sea was stronger than mine,” sang the poet, though not the Prophet—he was a desert chieftain and maybe had never seen the sea, so he says very little about it. Their fascination or aversion to water was what probably made them have fountains and gurgling, trickling water sounds everywhere. For me, a conscientious Californian from the land of periodic drought, for whom even extra toilet flushes are slightly wicked, the constant splashes of some fountain somewhere in earshot wherever you went was a little distressing.

  By now I had gotten to know a few of Posy’s secrets: that she was not entirely thrilled to become a mother, and that she believed her baby had been conceived on the Eurostar—so that technically it might be either French or English—she would always wonder which. Robin Crumley, with his graying hair and pale eyes, was anyone’s idea of a distinguished poet, but it didn’t seem to me he would be a very satisfactory father, and it was certainly impossible to imagine him fucking in a train. He was always to be seen on the patio shifting cushions, looking for his pen or glasses, distracted by some poetical conundrum from the business of real life or even conversation.

  Most evenings, Posy and Ian discussed books. (Robin, the professional man of letters, seemed to feel it was beneath him to join in those discussions, and I didn’t know enough to.) During the day, Robin Crumley was generally in his element, with plenty of solitude for composition; according to him, perfect monotony was somehow a precondition of art. He was never seen before lunch, and after lunch he disappeared again, ostensibly to work—actually to sleep, Posy suggested.

  Sometimes Posy and I, with Ian and Robin or not, were invited out to lunch—sometimes an English lunch of roast, potatoes, and gravy at the Cotters’, sometimes American salad and quiche at Tom and Strand’s, sometimes at a Moroccan restaurant hosted by a French or Moroccan acquaintance, for instance Colonel Barka, who always paid pointed attention to me. I chalked this up to my flashy blonde hair, something of a novelty here still—as it was for me, for I am not naturally blonde, it is part of my disguise. But it seems to alter the character too, just as people think it does. Required to be blonde, I just decided to go all the way with it; it’s Hollywood pale, very showy, Swedish-starlet-colored, and I have indeed found that people react to it and treat me differently. I can’t be precise about how, but it’s that they take me for more of an adventuress than they would have with my nice-girl brown—and they aren’t wrong. I plan to keep it this way.

  Moroccan dishes are somewhat monotonous, lamb and chicken, at least in the hands of Ian’s cooks. I found that I was putting more and more harissa paste, with its Mexican hotness, on all of the food I was served. Apart from this, though each new recipe or person brought the possibility of learning something, doing something, basically I learned nothing, did nothing worthy of reporting to Taft—except, of course, my cover interest in Moroccan literacy. Taft had at least seemed very interested in Ian’s fire.

  “Lulu, for the moment, stay in Marrakech, don’t go to any outlying villages on your inspections,” he had said on the phone when he heard about the fire. In our line of work, you don’t challenge such orders, so I postponed a plan to go with a woman from the World Learning Project to a village in the desert to the south. Thus far I’d seen only one literacy project in Marrakech; it seemed to me an ordinary school, where girls of eight or nine bent over books in Arabic they were apparently reading. What did the books say? I couldn’t read them of course. I smiled at the children, bent to look over their shoulders, nodded as I had seen Princess Diana or Laura Bush do in newscasts. Some of the little girls wore head coverings, some didn’t.

  “Oh, literacy,” said Marina Cotter. “What good does reading do them? I think our project is much more useful. We teach them not to kill their donkeys. They beat them so, they starve them, and then when the creatures die, they bewail their misfortune. They have no conception of humane treatment or that it’s in their own best interests to treat their beasts with kindness, for all that the Koran says you ought to treat animals kindly.” She and a team of Arabic and Berber speakers travel in the guise of veterinarians, offering to treat sick donkeys, which they do, then they slip in their lessons: “If he is in good health, Mohammed, he will serve you a much longer time.”

  “When their donkeys die, the women have to carry the firewood,” said Posy. “You see women along the road here, little bent‐ over old ones, carrying as much as a donkey.” Both Marina and Posy pronounced the word “dunkey,” in their English way. Eventually I told one of the Moroccan literacy ladies about Marina’s donkey rescue and asked her about the cruelty. She said, piously, “I am sure it is not true. Mohammed spoke of animals as God’s creatures and said that they must be treated with kindness and care. ‘Even looking after plants and trees is an act of virtue,’ he said. That went for sparrows and camels and every animal.” I found myself thinking that the sayings of Mohammed have a way of making him a whole lot nicer than his imams seem today.

  14

  In most of their secret talks / There is no good: but if / One exhorts to a deed / Of charity or goodness / Or conciliation between people / Secrecy is permissible.

  —Koran 4:114

  A few days after the fire, at the souk again, for no special reason, I left a message for my contact, Aladdin, suggesting a meeting the following day at the Jardin Majorelle, a botanical garden with paths and benches and enough tourists to render invisible two people sitting on a bench among them. It was public but discreet, and two people could talk there without seeming illicit or clandestine. I’d already noted which bench, secluded in a grove of papyrus, would serve best, just as I’d mentally designated other meeting places and dead-drop possibilities, at the airport, the Mamounia hotel, and a certain restaurant on the outskirts of Guéliz, where expatriates don’t look out of place but no one goes. Ian and I had stopped there once while driving toward Fez.

  Why did I hasten to meet Aladdin now? There had been nothing urgent in the summons, but I suppose I wanted some sense of collaboration, some verification of a metier that had begun increasingly to seem abstract, unimportant, slightly beside the point of my day‐ to-day existence. I hoped this secret contact would turn out to be Moroccan and could help me with understanding some things—Ian’s fire, for example. If it wasn’t an accident, what did it mean and portend? I’m not an analyst, but I was coming to see that the field agent has to be analyst enough to know what to report in the first place, what to take seriously, what to fear.

  I went to the souk without Posy, sent Rashid away, and then took a petit taxi, the battered little vehicles favored by locals, from the souk to the Jardin Majorelle, a strange oasis in the north of the city. It had been created by the famous painter, featuring palms and cacti, and architectural elements painted an intense blue, called bleu Majorelle, I think, with pots of green and yellow set around, the whole vibrant palette at war with the dusty shrubbery. It reminded me of California motels when I was little, the strident colors and buzzing insects in the zinnias. Gardens are such symbols of transience and hope at the same time that I never know how to feel in them.

  I bought my ticket and went in, inconspicuous, I hoped, among the tourists who walked along the paths and succulents and lurid bougainvillea. I followed a long, narrow pool toward a blue fountain that I’d designated as the spot for us to meet. Further along behind it was the bench where I would sit down to wait.

  My first reaction to seeing Colonel Barka already sitting on my bench at the designated hour was one of panic, a sense of bizarre coincidence. I quickly realized, however, given that coincidences are rare, that the mor
e plausible explanation was that he was Aladdin. We stared at each other, and then I could see he was more surprised than

  I. I had imagined that he knew that Bearer Angel was me—how else had he known to leave a message with the spice dealer? But he had not. I sat down beside him and uttered the phrase Bearer Angel should say: “Could Aladdin conjure up such a garden with his lamp?” His reply contained the correct words: “A genie is but a bearer angel.”

  Like lovers, we reviewed the steps that led to our meeting. He had been told to leave a message at the spice dealer’s, but not who would turn up. Nor did he know, or he wouldn’t say, who’d told him. Who was he working for? For us? That was my assumption, but for Colonel Barka to know my code name, Bearer Angel, opened up many other possibilities. Had someone else penetrated this mission? Even if my phone calls had been intercepted, I hadn’t used my code name, nor was it written down or in my computer, even encrypted, so his information was very inside indeed, and I had to assume he was one of us, or of people we trusted.

  Since this was my first such encounter with a person from the netherworld we both inhabited, I wasn’t sure what questions were appropriate to ask. “Who else are you working for?” I asked eventually, though this is probably a breach of good conduct. I was assuming he worked for us, but maybe also the fabled DST—Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire—our analogous Moroccan counterpart. Our dictum is, in effect, that there are no friendly intelligence services, including the British, but that “a good partner withholds openly.” He stroked his mustache with the suave gesture of a stage villain.

  “I am a loyal Moroccan of course, and there are many instances of close cooperation. I can help you with many a little thing. Sometimes there are things I need to know—things I do not quite understand in the European community. You can help me with those.”

  This answer didn’t enlighten me, really. He was obviously in contact with my employers, but he could also be a counterintelligence agent, “CI.” Was I in turn being recruited as a Moroccan spy, a double agent of some sort? I hardly knew, but in any case, since I didn’t know anything about anything, I couldn’t see the harm in agreeing to keep in touch with Colonel Barka and to cooperate with him about “many a little thing.” It made me feel, at least, a little less alone to see the conspiratorial spark in his eye. I also hoped to get an idea of whether he was a professional spy or a patriot. The manual says “the most effective spy is the ideological one. The mercenary or the person terrorized into spying will be much easier to turn and double.” It made some difference into which category the Colonel fit.

  “I will leave messages for you with the spice merchant,” said the Colonel.

  “Who is he?”

  “He is reliable,” said the Colonel. “And I will take the precaution of asking Ian if I might have the plea sure of showing you some historic buildings of old Marrakech from time to time. How is he? Far too preoccupied with his fire to interest himself in tourism. He will appreciate my taking you and his other guests to see some of the more esoteric sights of Marrakech. Thus I can telephone you at the house. If I mention Miss Andrews, you will know there is something for you with the spice merchant. Here is a telephone number. If you call, leave your name—a woman will answer, either as Mlle. Sanyed or as Berna Andrews, in which latter case, I will leave another number with the spice merchant.”

  “What about the fire, what do you think?”

  “Whether sabotage or accident? Sabotage, probably.”

  “Fertilizer is very volatile.”

  “If they were producing fertilizer.” Colonel Barka dismissed this as a topic of interest with a wave of his hand, but to me it was a vital question; if it wasn’t fertilizer, did Ian know it? Whose fertilizer—or Semtex, or what ever it was—was it? Ian’s?

  “Do you know for certain fertilizer?” asked the Colonel.

  “Not for certain. Ian said it was fertilizer.”

  “Rocket fuel is also made from ammonium nitrate,” he said. “Ammonium nitrate is a principal product of Morocco. Rocket fuel is a popular commodity in this region.”

  “You think Ian is involved, don’t you?”

  “Evidently our people think so, yours and mine,” he said. I’d thought about that, of course. Was it possible I had been set up, in a way, by Taft et al., by their putting me in a useful position to observe Ian without telling me all the implications? Their reasoning would be: Keep her in ignorance so she’ll be completely natural. We won’t corrupt her mind with suspicions.

  “What about Rashid?” I asked.

  “He has the soul of a courier and will accept a few dirhams for any little task, without question. Withal, I think, loyal to Ian, as he understands loyalty.”

  “Loyalty” was not a word I wished to examine. We talked about some other recent instances of arson in the suburbs of Marrakech. As we parted he said, “Perhaps, inshallah—God willing—we will come to mean more to each other.”

  This meeting with Colonel Barka gave me much to think about, not the least this last remark. Was it a suggestive personal or a political remark? He had seemed to me a little like the suave eunuch counselors in Montesquieu. But perhaps that was to underestimate him. If personal, it seemed insulting, unprofessional, and wrong in the old‐fashioned way for someone who often accepted Ian’s hospitality to hit on Ian’s girlfriend, though maybe that compunction was itself old-fashioned. Was his an Islamic idea that Western women, particularly those living in sin, were loose and didn’t mind who they slept with? Would I sleep with the colonel if I perceived a way to, say, break a dangerous arms smuggling ring? Sure.

  I was more preoccupied with the colonel’s hint about Ian. It was true he hadn’t seemed that surprised at the fire. Allowing suspicions of any of Ian’s movements or attitudes always brought up the curious fact of his volunteer work in Kosovo. It had seemed natural and virtuous at the time, but it continued to seem suspicious. I thought over all our talks, fishing for a time he might have expressed some pro-or anti‐Islamic feelings, or special British patriotism, or any ideology at all. He never had.

  Later, I had to accept that I was unequal to analyzing Colonel Barka’s motives and connections. Besides being my appointed contact, was he Moroccan counterintelligence, sent to block my activities? To cooperate? Neither of these? Was he some sort of double agent on our side? With no way of knowing—a condition of bafflement endemic to our business; I would try to keep all of these possibilities in mind. After all, double agents are doubled, treacherous by definition. I reported fully and dutifully to Taft, who seemed unsurprised by Barka but didn’t identify him either.

  The colonel’s and my relationship developed collegially. I liked the colonel better than I liked Taft. Though in his chatty e‐mail persona of Sheila, Taft could be nice and even funny, the colonel and I had a certain level of trust: If he couldn’t answer my questions, I trusted him to say he couldn’t answer for reasons of policy, instead of lying, and I did the same. In answer to his questions, I was always having to tell him I didn’t know, for instance about Ian’s businesses, which he clearly suspected and about which I truly didn’t know anything beyond what Ian had said about them. Now, I’m not sure why I was so obtuse about Ian. Because I loved him?

  15

  And familiarity with the subject language must be insisted upon, despite current American disdain for such studies. Idioms, expressions, and even pronouns reveal most of the culture in which languages flourish, and help in the deduction of attitudes and motives in many situations.

  —William E. Colby, “Recruitment, Training, and Incentives for Better Analysis”

  Part of my task was to recruit informants (we were told to use “informant,” which was more polite than to refer to “informers”) and create a network of “pickets”—storekeepers, waiters, and the like whose opinions could be useful; and finally, to monitor and transmit any political and/or weapons-related information that might drift my way. For this purpose, I made two important recruits. Pursuing my literacy evaluatio
n task, one day we had an encounter that could have been awkward, but which luckily I was prepared for. Rashid had brought Posy and me to the headquarters of the Near East Friendship Foundation, where I had an appointment with the local director. Though this was a Moroccan-run charity, when a woman in

  Moroccan dress came in to greet us, I could see that she was American. How could I tell this? I have no idea, something indefinable in her walk. The women I saw moving along the roads walked slowly, in a certain way, perhaps because most of them were stout. Or was it her expression, or her sunglasses? The Moroccan women didn’t have sunglasses, and eventually their faces would become squinted and lined, just as our dermatologists would predict.

  Anyway, we could see that this woman was not Moroccan; she had light gray eyes and pale, soft skin slightly wrinkled in a Western way, graying hair just showing under the hijab, and when she spoke, it was with a perfectly normal American accent, a woman of around sixty, maybe older.

  “This is Habiba Al‐Hayek,” said the secretary who had let us in. “Madame Crumley and Mademoiselle Sawyer.”

  “Nice to meet you,” she said in a businesslike way. “Let me tell you about Moroccan illiteracy.”

  Eventually, talking, it emerged that I was from California, and she said she was raised in Palo Alto. It was then I realized why she bore the trace of a memory or intuition for me—this would actually be a sort of relative, Alice Mott, a cousin of my stepmother, a person fabled in my family for having run off to Mecca during the sixties with her then husband Bob, both of them Ph.D. biologists who converted to Islam about the same time as Cassius Clay did. “It only happens in WASP families,” I remember my father saying, not remembering Cassius Clay. “People of other religions take religion too seriously to do anything so silly.”