‘I invite you.’ Salima smiles at Addy.
How pretty she is, her face as delicate as a bird’s, Addy thinks. ‘Then I’d love to come to the henna party tonight. Will you come too, Omar?’
‘It’s not for men to go. The men will have a celebration separate.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, it happens like that. But the wedding will be for three days, so another day the men and ladies will be all together. Tonight it’s just for the ladies. You will love it, darling. It will be a big experience for you.’
A monumental colonnade of graceful Arabic arches stretches out either side of the mosque’s giant minaret-like wings. Addy stops to take photos of Omar and his uncle and aunt in front of an enormous wall fountain embellished with millions of coloured mosaics.
Rachid runs his hands over the glazed tiles. ‘It is zellige. It is very beautiful, isn’t it? To make zellige is an ancient art of Morocco. The men who make them are called malems and they learn the art from childhood. The tiles are terracotta, which is painted and enamelled. It takes a long time to do it.’
Addy rubs her finger against a tiny, diamond-shaped, green-glazed tile. ‘It’s impossible to find anything like this in London. Everyone’s in a rush. There’s no time for this kind of craftsmanship.’
‘It’s a pity. We honour ourselves and we honour Allah when we take care in whatever it is we do.’ Rachid gazes up to the top of the minaret. ‘Do you not feel Allah in this place?’
Inside the mosque they remove their shoes. Omar hands Addy his tagelmust to drape over her hair and they wait in the foyer to join a tour group for a tour of the mosque’s interior.
Omar squints as he focuses on the intricate ceiling decoration. ‘It’s the first time I wait to come inside the mosque. I can go as I like because I’m Muslim. It’s special for you to come inside a mosque, Adi. In many mosques it’s haram to go inside if you are not Muslim.’
A group of French tourists congregates near the entrance doors and Omar steers Addy and Rachid towards them.
‘We’ll follow the tour because we must do it for you to see the mosque. But my uncle can be your tour guide. He knows everything about the mosque.’
They follow the group into the enormous prayer hall and break off into a satellite group of four. Gleaming white marble arches carved with plasterwork as delicate as icing frame them like figures on a wedding cake. Murano glass chandeliers hang from the ceiling like the earrings of a giantess.
‘It’s wonderful.’
Rachid looks up at the chandeliers. ‘Whenever I am here, Madame Adi, I feel like a flea on an elephant.’
Addy drags her eyes away from the ceiling. ‘Where’s the glass floor where you can see the sea underneath?’
‘Ah, this is a problem.’ Rachid gestures to the front of the hall where velvet ropes cordon off an area of the floor. ‘It is over there. But it is only for the king and his family to kneel on it. Our eyes cannot see it.’
Omar grunts. ‘It should be for all Muslims to pray over the water.’
Rachid glances over at Omar and frowns.
‘Why is the mosque built out over the ocean, Rachid?’
‘King Hassan II wished it so. He said it was because Allah’s throne is on the water. But there have been problems with the salt in the foundations. It went through the concrete and the steel rusted. They made many corrections for this since the mosque was built.’
Further into the prayer hall, Addy points to an impressive wooden balcony projecting from the mezzanine flanking the hall to the right, with a latticework of decorative carvings.
‘What’s that for?’
‘It’s for the ladies. They must be separate from the men. It’s for their privacy and their modesty.’
‘The men get the whole prayer hall and the women only get a balcony?’
‘Not so many ladies come to the mosque to pray,’ Omar says. ‘The ladies like to pray in their house, like my aunt. It’s more private. But when they come, there is a place for them.’
Rachid looks up at the ceiling. ‘Do you see the ceiling? It can open in five minutes so that we can worship under the stars and be closer to Allah. All because King Hassan II wished it so.’
Outside the mosque, they wander through the courtyard and under the arches towards a public garden nearby. Omar spreads out his tagelmust on the grass like a blanket and they sit on it, watching the gulls swoop over the ocean waves. There’s a vendor selling bags of roasted nuts nearby and Omar strolls over to him. Addy takes a picture of Rachid and Nadia, smiling like newlyweds, the sea and the mosque in the background. She shows them the image on the camera.
‘Nadia zwina.’
Nadia shakes her head. ‘Laa, laa. Adi zwina.’
Addy scrolls through the photos. Nadia and Rachid smile and exclaim as the images flip by. She stops at the image of herself in the turquoise hijab with Habiba and Salima. Omar leans over, smelling of salted almonds.
‘Maybe you can be a Muslim lady one day, Adi.’
Rachid translates this for Nadia, who smiles a toothy porcelain smile. ‘Inshallah.’
Addy sets down the camera on the blue tagelmust. ‘Don’t hold your breath. I’m a Welsh–Irish Catholic girl from Canada. Well, I was. I haven’t been inside a church since … well, for a long time.’
Omar squats down and doles out paper bags of warm almonds. ‘It doesn’t matter, darling. Anyway, it’s permitted for a Muslim man to marry a Christian lady. So, no problem. Then we can have many children.’
‘Children?’
‘Yes. It’s natural. I want to have many children to leave my heritage in the world even when I die.’ He leans over Addy and whispers, ‘Our children will be beautiful, Adi. They will have hair of fire and eyes like the sea.’
Omar picks up the camera and flicks through the photos, stopping to show a picture of Fatima to his uncle and aunt.
‘Fatima?’ Nadia raises her hand in the air to indicate Fatima has grown.
They chat in Arabic as Omar scrolls through the photos. Their words wash over Addy like the ocean waves splashing against the foundations of the great mosque.
Her stomach lurches. She hands her bag of almonds to Omar. She’s in a car that’s going too fast and she has no seat belt to keep her safe when it crashes.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Casablanca, Morocco – May 2009
That evening, the girls dress Addy up in a silky purple kaftan, embellished with silver embroidery around the high collar and flowing sleeves. Salima loans her a pair of silver leather babouches and Habiba finishes off the costume with a heavy silver leather belt studded with colourful glass gems. They dress themselves in kaftans as well, Habiba in bright orange embroidered with gold thread, and Salima in blue with delicate white embroidery, their hair loose around their shoulders.
They’re excited about the henna party and Addy tries to match their enthusiasm, but a weight has settled over her, pressing down on her mood like a stone. Children? How can Omar be talking about children? Everything’s moving too fast. How can she tell him she’s had cancer? That her eggs are dead. She’d had a choice. Let the doctors pump her full of oestrogen that fed her breast cancer so they could harvest the eggs, or let her eggs wither and die from the Red Devil. Nigel hadn’t wanted children. Nor had she. Was she going to commit suicide or murder? She’d murdered her eggs.
And now, what now?
They walk through the dark alleyways, laden down with plastic bags of cakes and cookies, guided by the sound of women’s voices singing and ululating on the still evening air. There’s no moon and Addy stumbles several times on the uneven earth. They pass a hole-in-the-wall shop lit by a string of Christmas lights. A group of men cluster around a dusty analogue television watching football. One of them says something in Arabic as they pass by. Habiba makes a rude gesture with her finger.
‘What did he say?’ Addy asks.
‘Mashi mushkil, Adi. He crazy man.’
The singing emanates from a long whit
ewashed building with a row of small windows high up along the front façade. A wooden door hangs loosely on its hinges. Yellow light escapes around the gaps where the doorframe meets the concrete block walls.
Salima knocks on the door and Addy follows the sisters into the large room. Women in djellabas, kaftans, aprons and pyjamas sit, as colourful as a flower garden, on carpets and mats spread out over the dirt floor. A group of wizened women, their hair covered in bandanas, sit cross-legged on cushions in a corner, singing loudly as they pound on large tambourines.
On a platform at the front of the room, a girl of about Habiba’s age sits on a chair draped with red-and-gold satin. She’s dressed in a green velvet gown embroidered with gold thread, and her hands and feet are tattooed in an elaborate design of flowers and curlicues in bright red henna. Her eyes are rimmed with black kohl like an Egyptian goddess and her black hair is piled on top of her head, a silver crown holding it in place. Her face is flushed. A woman standing next to her leans over from time to time to dab with a tissue at the droplets of sweat trailing down her cheeks.
They hand their bags of food to a woman standing in the doorway of the adjoining kitchen, which is filled with chatting and laughing women making tea and setting out platters of food. Habiba and Salima each take one of Addy’s hands. They pick their way over the seated women until they reach the bride on her patchwork throne. The cousins greet the bride, kissing her on her cheeks. Addy does the same. The young bride smiles at her and says Marhaba.
They squeeze into a space on the floor near the singers and sit down. The women’s eyes bore into her.
‘Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here?’
Habiba squeezes her hand. ‘Yes, you are with me. Everybody know Habiba.’
She jumps up and begins a wild belly dance, swooping her curly black hair around her head in swishing loops. The women laugh and clap.
Habiba grabs Addy’s hand and pulls her to her feet.
‘No, Habiba.’
‘Yes, Adi. Come, dance with Habiba. I teach you to dance like Arab lady.’ She thrusts her hips in a wide circle and jolts her pelvis forwards with a jerk.
Salima pushes Addy towards her sister. ‘You go, Adi. You will do well.’
Addy senses every eye on her. ‘Omar was right, Habiba. You’re crazy.’
Habiba giggles and takes Addy’s hands in hers. ‘You follow what I do.’ Habiba’s heels rise and fall as her hips swing in a graceful figure of eight. She releases Addy’s hands and claps to the music’s rhythm. ‘Like that.’
Addy mimics Habiba’s movements as best she can. Salima joins them and dances a more graceful version of Habiba’s wild gyrations. One of the old women ululates and the shrill warble sits on the air like a challenge. Another woman joins in and the singers’ song grows louder. A couple of younger women rise and dance, swinging their loose hair to the beat of the tambourines. The women clap and stamp their feet. Addy shuts her eyes and dances.
A woman whose djellaba strains against her rolls of fat sits beside Addy, pressing cookies and sweets on her. She smiles toothlessly whenever Addy takes one and Addy tells her she’s zwina. She grabs Addy in a bear hug and crushes her against her bosom until Salima comes to Addy’s rescue.
‘It will be your turn next, Salima,’ Habiba says.
Addy raises a questioning eyebrow. ‘Salima’s turn?’
‘Yes, I will marry a Moroccan man in France. He’s the brother of my sister’s husband there. They live in Paris. I must go with my father to Rabat soon to get the visa.’
‘Rabat?’
‘It’s where all the countries have offices for visas,’ Habiba says. ‘One day, I will marry a man of England so I can visit you, Adi.’
One of the singers calls over to Habiba in shrill Arabic.
‘Omar! Adi!’ Habiba shouts back.
The singer slices through the noise of the women’s conversations with a sharp ululation. She claps out a rhythm. ‘Omar Adi! Omar Adi!’ The other singers take up the song, beating their tambourines, and soon the whole room is singing the names.
‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s a song for the marriage of Omar and Adi,’ Salima explains.
Habiba pats her stomach. ‘They are singing for you to have many babies.’
Salima strokes Addy’s hair. ‘You are Arabic lady now, and Amazigh, too. Like me and my sister. Nus nus.’
The front door rattles with thudding knocks. Men yell outside in the alley. The singing and music waver and stop. The flimsy door slams open and men tumble inside, their faces contorted with rage. The men they’d passed earlier are there. One of them points at Addy and yells in Arabic.
Addy feels the blood drain from her face. ‘Oh, my God.’
Habiba leaps to her feet and screams at the man. The woman sitting beside Addy struggles to her feet and joins in, shrieking in Tamazight. The bride pulls herself up out of her chair, the sleeves of her gown smearing the wet henna on her hands, and joins in with high-pitched remonstrations.
Soon, the room is full of women’s voices, like a hundred train whistles going off at once. The men push towards Addy, but the women block their path with their bodies. She’s like a helpless, vulnerable child and they’re all her mothers. The women scream and throw their arms about as the men crowd at the doorway, angry but impotent. Finally, the men leave, slamming the door behind them.
Addy and the two sisters leave the wedding party, surrounded by a guard of twenty women. Halfway back to the house, she sees Omar running down the alleyway to meet them. He grabs Addy’s hands and holds them against his chest. The line between his eyes is carved deep with worry.
‘You are okay?’
‘We had some trouble.’
‘I know, darling. I heard about it.’ He scans Addy from head to foot. ‘You’re fine? Nobody hurt you?’
‘I’m fine. Just a bit shaken.’
‘You go in the house with Habiba and Salima. I’ll be back soon.’
‘Where are you going?’
The vein in Omar’s temple jumps against his skin. ‘Don’t worry, darling.’
‘Be careful.’
‘Be sure about it. Nobody can touch me.’
His moonlit silhouette disappears down the alleyway. Addy stands in the lane until she can no longer hear the crunch of his footsteps on the gravel.
When Omar and Addy are alone in Rachid and Nadia’s bedroom later that night, he hugs Addy tight against him.
‘You are fine, habibati?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. We were having a wonderful time. And then these men came.’
He rubs Addy’s back with his palm. ‘I know about it. I don’t like it at all. I talked to them to be calm. I said you are my wife, so they accepted it. But we must be careful. Some men here don’t like foreigners at all. Some of the men who bomb the trains in Madrid lived here. Maybe al-Qaeda is here.’
‘Al-Qaeda’s here?’
‘Maybe.’
Addy’s breath is coming so fast that she can barely get her words out. ‘Don’t you think I’m a pretty obvious target for kidnapping?’
Omar rubs his forehead. ‘I didn’t think about it, Adi. I took you to my family. It’s normal for me to come here.’
Addy pushes him away and staggers over to a banquette. ‘What do we do now?’
Omar sits down beside her. The banquette’s wooden frame groans. ‘Tomorrow, we go early. We’ll go back to Zitoune. There is a bus that goes there from Casa.’
‘I was hoping to go to Rabat to visit the Canadian Embassy to see if they have any records of my father and Hanane, and I wanted to take some pictures on the boardwalk here for my book.’
‘Another time for Rabat, habibati. I’m so sorry for that situation. I’ll make the taxi go to the boardwalk in the morning for you to take pictures before we leave. It’s better to be safe in Zitoune.’
‘We’ll be safe tonight?’
Omar takes Addy’s clenched hands into his and holds them against his heart. ‘Adi, I’ll kill
all of them before they can take you, you must be sure about it.’ He kisses her hands and rises from the banquette. ‘You can sleep well.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Darling, I don’t sleep tonight. I’m the guard for you. Don’t worry at all. I can kill, it’s no problem for me. I can do it. Nobody can touch you. So you’ll be fine.’
It’s early, about six o’clock. A taxi is waiting by the water tap. Addy hugs Nadia and kisses her cheeks as she stands in the doorway.
Nadia hands Addy a plastic bag full of bread and oranges. ‘Beslama, Adi.’ She grabs Addy’s shoulders in her sturdy grip and kisses her cheeks.
‘Beslama, Nadia. Shukran bezzef.’
Rachid and Omar head up the lane to the taxi. Habiba and Salima walk either side of Addy, their arms entwined. Door curtains twitch and as they pass each doorway, a woman emerges. In the alleyways, silent men stare as they make their way up the lane. The women cluster in front of their doorways like an honour guard of rustic angels, ensuring Addy’s safe passage out of their world.
Chapter Thirty
Zitoune, Morocco – May 2009
Aicha takes one look at Addy’s damp, bloodless face and wraps her arms around her.
‘Oushane?’
Addy nods weakly. They have just come through the mountains in a decrepit Mercedes taxi on the one-lane dirt road from the mountain village of Oushane, having been dropped off there by the Casablanca bus.
Aicha waves her hand at Omar and scolds him in shrill Tamazight. Fatima appears from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She grins broadly when she sees Addy.
‘Are you okay, Adi?’ she asks in French. ‘The road from Oushane is terrible. I’m sick all the time on the bus from Beni Mellal. It’s very bad for Omar to take you that way.’
Omar throws up his hands. ‘Womens. I make a safe trip from Casa and you are not satisfied. I’m going to see some football at the café. Eat the brochettes of chicken my mum made for you, habibati. Enjoy. I’ll come later.’
When Omar hasn’t returned after Addy’s sat through three histrionic Turkish soap operas with Aicha, Fatima and Jedda, Aicha insists that Addy sleep in her bedroom to recover from the bus ride. Addy’s so tired that her body sinks into the mattress like an anchor. Her mind spins like a top. She wonders how safe she really is. How she can tell Omar she’s infertile. There again, that hardly matters now. It’s not like they’re getting married. They barely know each other. Her mind turns to where she’s left her father’s Polaroids and why no one in Zitoune recognises Hanane, what happened to her, and her baby. What’s she going to do about Nigel? What on earth is she doing with her life?
The Lost Letter from Morocco Page 16