‘Let’s say it’s on the way up, shall we? Seriously, this Omar person probably makes eyes at all the girls. Though you’re way past the girl phase.’
‘I don’t think he’s like that.’
‘He’s a mountain guide. In Morocco. Of course he’s like that.’
‘He’s a university graduate.’
‘Really?’
‘In English literature.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘And you believed him.’
‘Well …’
‘You’re naive. That’s part of your problem. You trust people. Everyone’s out for themselves. It’s a Me! Me! Me! world.’
Addy massages her forehead with her fingertips. ‘What do you mean “part of my problem”?’
‘You have terrible taste in men.’
An image of her ex-fiancé, Nigel, plants itself in Addy’s head. Floppy brown hair, ‘trust me’ hazel eyes, the teasing grin. Despite how much he’d hurt her, she couldn’t help but feel some lingering affection towards him. They’d had some fun together, when Nigel wasn’t off somewhere climbing the ladder to a legal career. They’d play hooky to catch a mid-week movie matinee at the Clapham Picture House, or check out a band at the Brixton Dome. All that petered out as Nigel got busier with work. But then she’d been busy with her photography studio too. It had just all gone wrong at the end. Badly wrong.
‘Nigel wasn’t so bad. He was under a lot of pressure at work. He was trying to get taken on as a partner at the law firm. My cancer was hard on him. It couldn’t have been easy holding my bald head over the toilet while I puked my guts out.’
‘My heart bleeds. Did I ever tell you he used to come crying on my shoulder when you were sick? I was completely taken in. I was the one who pulled strings to get him into that law firm in the first place. More fool me. He’s a bastard for fooling around when your hair fell out.’
Finding the bill from The Ivy was a shock. Dinner for two. But it wasn’t as bad as finding the hotel invoice. Both dated the night she was in hospital having the blood transfusion. Nigel should’ve been more careful. Shoving the receipts in an envelope on their shared desk was stupid. Cancer did strange things to people. There was a lot of collateral damage.
‘I guess.’
‘I don’t mean to upset you. It’s just that when I think of Nigel, I want to poke his eyes out with a burning poker. I hate being taken for a fool.’
‘Never mind about Nigel. That’s over. Mashy mushkey.’
‘Mashy what?’
‘It means no problem.’
‘So, now you’re speaking Moroccan.’
‘Darija, actually.’
The rooster rends the air with an ear-splitting crow. Addy watches him strut across the path. He stops and stares at her with a cold black eye. Thrusting out his red feathered chest, he bellows out another piercing crow.
‘Good God, what a racket. The Devil card. Addy, that one’s definitely for you.’
Chapter Nine
Zitoune, Morocco – April 2009
‘It’s working?’
Omar’s mother, Aicha, flicks through the TV remote but the images on the large flat-screen TV wobble and fizz like the European soft drinks Omar brings them from Azaghar for the Eid al-Adha celebration dinner.
Aicha walks through the archway from the living room and yells up the steps to the roof. ‘Laa! Not yet!’
Fatima pops her head around the kitchen door. ‘Maybe it’s not a good television. It’s not new like the one Yassine bought for his wife.’
‘Yassine never bought it for Khadija, one hundred per cent.’ Omar’s head appears in the patch of blue sky over the open courtyard. ‘He only buys stuff for himself, you have to know about it. Anyway, this is a good television. It’s a bit new. You’ll be able to watch your Turkish shows better.’ Omar’s head disappears from view. ‘Yamma, try now!’ he yells. ‘I fixed the satellite with the clothesline.’
Aicha hands the remote to Fatima. ‘You do it, Fatima. It’s too complicated for me.’ She heads up the rough grey concrete steps to the roof of the extension Omar’s building. Stepping over a stack of wood, Aicha grabs a rusty iron strut to steady herself. Omar is by the satellite dish, tightening her clothesline around the white disc to correct its tilt.
Fatima’s voice floats up to the roof. ‘It’s working! Don’t move it! Just like that!’
Omar steps back from the satellite dish and slaps the dust off his hands. ‘Good. I’ll buy you another clothesline, Yamma. Don’t worry.’
‘Mashi mushkil.’ Aicha steps over the discarded paint cans and bends down to collect the workers’ dirty tagine pot. Finally, she has Omar on his own. It’s time to discuss the situation.
‘Zaina’s mother was here yesterday.’
Omar’s eyebrow twitches. ‘Oh, yes? She’s well? Everyone’s well?’
Aicha props the tagine pot on her hip as she picks dead leaves off her pots of pelargoniums. ‘Everyone’s well. But, you know, Zaina is getting older. Her parents are worried about her.’
Omar begins stacking concrete blocks into a neat pile. ‘No reason to worry about her. She’s a clever girl.’
‘Omar. You know what I’m talking about. You’re not so young. You must think about marriage. Zaina is waiting for you. You promised …’
‘Yamma, I didn’t promise anything. You promised her parents I’d marry her. Full stop.’
‘I don’t understand what the problem is. She cooks well. She cleans her parents’ house well. She’s young and healthy and very pretty. She’ll be a good mother.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’
‘So, why are you waiting? They’ll marry Zaina to someone else soon.’
‘If Allah wills.’
‘Omar, I’m only thinking of you and your happiness. All you do is work. Your life is passing you by. Don’t you want to have a fine son?’
‘I think you want to have a fine grandson.’
Aicha twists her mouth into a pout. ‘What’s wrong with that? Yes, I want many grandchildren. We must think about Fatima as well. She must be married soon, even though she says no to everybody.’
‘Fatima can do as she likes. She’s a free Amazigh woman like the Queen Dihya of history. I won’t put my sister in a prison to make her marry someone she doesn’t want, like what happened to Uncle Rachid’s daughter. Fatima must be happy when she gets married. That’s my responsibility to her.’
‘Fatima thinks only of romance like she sees on the television. She has to be practical. It’s not easy to find her a husband because of her black skin, even if she’s your sister. It’s easy to find a good wife for you because you’re a hard worker. If you don’t want to marry Zaina, tell me. Everybody wants their daughter to marry you.’
Omar stacks the last concrete block onto the pile and sits down on it with a sigh. He rubs at the crease between his eyes.
‘I don’t like to talk about this situation. Anyway, maybe I’ll marry a foreign lady. It’s possible.’
Aicha bolts upright, dropping dried pelargonium leaves over the concrete.
‘You shouldn’t say things like that. You’re Amazigh. You must have an Amazigh wife.’
‘Uncle Rachid doesn’t have an Amazigh wife.’
‘He has an Arab wife, and this has caused many problems for him in his life.’
‘Yamma, I’m Amazigh, so I’m a free man. I can marry who I like. Anyway, I like a foreign lady. You met her.’
The beautiful woman with the red hair like a boy. Aicha shakes her head.
‘This is not a good situation, Omar. You’ll have problems with a foreign lady. Will she live in Zitoune? I don’t think so. She’ll want to be with her own people. She’ll make you live far away.’
Omar chews on his lip. His eye catches a movement and he looks up to see a falcon fluttering high in the blue sky, eyeing the green fields for prey. He couldn’t explain it. Why his heart jumped in his chest whenever he saw her. How her face haunt
ed his mind. It wasn’t just Addy’s dream of seeing him the night before they met, though that was incredible. The moment he saw her in the bus, her face, red and sweaty from the ride, under the farmer’s hat, it was like they were magnets being drawn together. Like they knew each other already. Like all the days he’d lived had been steps to the moment they finally met.
‘I’ll have a big problem, then.’ He looks at his mother, at her still handsome face lined with worry. ‘She has captured my liver.’
Chapter Ten
Zitoune, Morocco – April 2009
Omar shouts through a window grille into his mother’s house. ‘Yamma! Fatima! Jedda!’
The blue metal door creaks open and Fatima steps out into the alley. Addy waves at her shyly from across the lane. Fatima pushes past Omar and runs up to Addy and kisses her on both cheeks.
‘Bonjour. Marhaba à la maison de Fatima,’ she says, welcoming Addy to her home. She grabs Addy’s hand and pulls her towards the door. ‘Viens avec moi pour le thé.’
Omar shakes his head. ‘Now my sister takes you away from me, Adi honey. It will be so hard for me to get you from her.’
Omar’s cell phone rings out the first notes of ‘Hotel California’. He wrinkles his nose at the screen and rejects the call. He slips the phone back into his pocket.
‘Was that the plumber, Omar? Shouldn’t you tell him you’re on your way to my house?’
‘He knows I’m coming. It’s urgent to fix the problem with your water.’
Fatima tugs at Addy’s hand and pulls her into the house.
Omar follows his sister and Addy into the narrow room that serves as both the living room and Fatima’s and Jedda’s bedroom. A low wooden table is set with a chocolate cake and plates of homemade cookies. Aicha greets Addy with several ‘Marhaba’s as she pours a stream of fragrant mint tea into tiny gold-rimmed glasses.
Fatima pats a place on the banquette next to her grandmother, Jedda, who grumbles and points to the opposite banquette with her cane. When Addy has settled sufficiently far enough away from Jedda, Fatima sits beside her and gives her a hug.
‘Stay with me, not with Omar,’ Fatima says to Addy in French. ‘You can be my sister.’
Omar picks up a handful of cookies and turns to leave. ‘Now I’m really jealous.’
Addy licks the sugary chocolate icing off her bottom lip, leans back against the flowered cushions and pats her stomach. ‘Shukran. Le gateau c’est très bon.’
Aicha smiles widely. She points to the chocolate cake sitting on a blue-and-white Chinese plate in the centre of the low round table. ‘Eesh caaka.’
Addy shakes her head. ‘Laa, shukran.’ Another piece of cake and she’d explode.
The Polaroid presses against her thigh. Aicha and Jedda would surely recognise Hanane. Zitoune was a small village. The type of village where everyone knew everyone else’s business. She reaches into her jeans pocket and pulls out the Polaroid, wrapped in her father’s blue letter. Leaning over the table, she hands the photo to Aicha.
‘Baba Adi,’ she says, pointing to Gus. My father.
Aicha squints at the photo, fine wrinkles fanning out from her deep-set amber eyes. Jedda taps Aicha’s arm impatiently with her stick. Aicha hands the old woman the Polaroid.
‘It’s my father in the picture,’ Addy says in French to Fatima. ‘He came to Zitoune many years ago. I’m trying to find the woman in the picture. I think she was from Zitoune. Can you ask your mother and your grandmother Jedda if they recognise her?’
Fatima translates for Addy. Aicha takes the photo from Jedda and frowns at it before handing it to Fatima, her coin earrings dangling against her cheeks as she shakes her head.
Fatima runs her fingers along the Polaroid’s frayed edges. ‘Your father is very handsome. You have the same nose and blue eyes.’
‘They don’t recognise her?’
Fatima shakes her head as she hands the photo back to Addy. ‘No. My mum and grandmother are the medicine women of the village. They know everybody in the mountains here. If she was from Zitoune, they would know her.’
Addy brushes cookie crumbs off the plastic tablecloth into her hand. She picks up her empty tea glass. Aicha nods and smiles, her coin earrings bobbing against her neck. Jedda sits on the banquette like a wizened oracle, eyeing Addy’s every move.
Addy follows Fatima out into the courtyard and through a green door into a tiny windowless kitchen. The room is a random mix of wooden cupboards and tiles painted with seashells and sailboats. An enormous ceramic sink propped up on cement blocks takes up most of one wall. Across from it a four-ring hob sits on top of a low cupboard next to a battered black oven connected to a dented green gas canister. Utensils and ropes of drying tripe hang from a wire hooked across the room.
‘Ssshhh,’ Fatima hisses, flapping a tea towel at the rangy black-and-white cat who’s poking its head into a bread basket. The cat slinks out, a crust of bread in its mouth. ‘Moush,’ she says, pointing at the cat.
Addy makes a circle around the room with her hand.
Fatima smiles. ‘Cuisine. Comme français.’
‘En anglais, kitchen.’
‘Smicksmin.’ Fatima shakes her head. ‘Très difficile.’
Omar pokes his head into the kitchen. ‘Come, Adi honey, we go.’
‘You missed some delicious chocolate cake.’
He thrusts his hand into the room. It’s full of cake. ‘I don’t miss nothing.’ He takes a bite and wipes the crumbs from his chin with the back of his hand.
‘Did the plumber show up? Is the water fixed? I haven’t been able to get a hold of Mohammed. He hasn’t been answering his phone.’
‘I know, I know. Mohammed is very busy. It might be he is in Marrakech. He goes there a lot for business. The plumber went to Azaghar. He’ll be back later.’
Addy frowns. ‘The water’s still not fixed? What took you so long?’
‘I did a tour by the waterfalls. I earned five hundred dirhams, so I’m happy for that. I want to buy a refrigerator for Fatima, but it’s very, very expensive.’
Omar beckons at Addy with a crumb-covered finger. ‘Come, let’s go for a walk by the waterfalls. Say goodbye to my grandmother. If you kiss her on her head, it shows her good respect. She’ll love you for that.’
‘I don’t think she wants me anywhere near her.’
‘She does, she does. You’ll see.’
Addy kisses Fatima on her cheeks and follows Omar into the living room. She edges around the low table past Aicha and bends over Jedda, kissing her on the top of her red polka-dot bandana. Jedda waves Addy away with her stick. Aicha grabs Addy’s hands and smiles. ‘Thank you for the tea and the cake and cookies of deliciousness,’ Addy says to her in rusty French. ‘I appreciate your hospitality of kindness. It would be my honour to invite you at my house for tea.’
Aicha smiles broadly and Addy realises with a shock that her teeth are false. Omar says something to his mother, who nods vigorously, setting her earrings swinging.
‘What did you say?’
‘I say you love chicken brochettes. We’ll come later for dinner.’
‘Oh, no, Omar. I don’t want to impose on your family. I’ve just eaten my weight in cake.’
‘It’s no imposition, Adi. She don’t like for you to eat by yourself. It makes her feel sad. It’s not normal for people to be alone in Morocco.’
Addy looks at Jedda. The old woman’s one good eye bores into her like she’s trying to excavate Addy’s soul. ‘Except for your grandmother.’
Omar shrugs. ‘My grandmother don’t like tourists. Don’t mind for it.’ He takes hold of Addy’s elbow and steers her across the courtyard to the front door. ‘Anyway, you are not a tourist to me. You are like an Amazigh lady. Even my mum says it.’
‘She did?’
‘Maybe she didn’t say it, but I know she think it.’ He opens the metal door. ‘She love your red hair and blue eyes for her grandchildren.’
‘Omar, honestly, I—’
> Omar laughs. ‘Don’t mind, Adi. Don’t believe everything I say. Oh, and Adi? My mum, she don’t speak French. It’s lucky because you don’t speak it so well.’
The daylight is fading when Omar and Addy reach a terrace paved with stones overlooking the waterfalls. A young Moroccan couple sits on the stone wall holding hands. The man speaks quietly and the woman leans her head in to listen. He plays with her fingers.
Omar and Addy sit on the wall. The last of the day’s sun throws a beam of light across the waterfalls, setting off sparks like fireflies on the water.
‘It’s a romantic place here, Adi. Sometimes couples come here to be private.’
‘Are they single?’
‘No. Everybody marries young here. But maybe there are children and parents and grandparents in the house. It’s the Moroccan manner. It’s difficult to be private.’
Addy feels a pang of sadness. As a child she’d wished on a star every night, hoping for a brother or sister to play with in the big house by the sea.
‘It must be nice to have a big family.’
Omar takes hold of her hand and plays with her fingers. ‘You have brothers and sisters, darling?’
‘A half-sister.’
Omar draws his black eyebrows together. ‘What’s that?’
Lights are coming on in the restaurants below, forming pools of yellow around the waterfalls.
‘Her name’s Philippa. She had a different mother. My father married twice.’ Addy presses her lips together into an apologetic smile. ‘We don’t get on very well. We’re very different.’
Omar nods. ‘It’s possible for a man in Morocco to marry four wives. It’s good to have many children. Then your heritage continues even when you go to Paradise.’
‘Oh, my father didn’t have two wives at the same time! He divorced his first wife and then married my mother. We don’t marry more than one person at a time. In fact, it’s illegal.’
Omar drops Addy’s hand and rests his arm around her shoulders. ‘I know it, honey. It might be that it’s better like that, anyway. It’s hard to have many wives. It’s very expensive.’ He rolls out the ‘r’ in very for added emphasis. ‘Each wife must have a house. Often, the ladies don’t like each other. Anyway, now it doesn’t happen so often. Only if the first wife doesn’t have babies, then you marry a second wife. But the first wife is the boss.’
The Lost Letter from Morocco Page 6