Furnace (3 page)

It was a slow, hard climb through the Muslim graveyard. There was no path between the graves and the way was steep and shadeless, but it was a shortcut to the ruined chapel,
saving at least half a mile, the English boy reckoned. Besides, he was desperate to escape the main route, winding and dusty, that followed the stream to the springs at Ras el Ma. All along the
river, under the old town walls, gangs of brown, half-naked children had crowded the shallow pools, splashing and shrieking and begging when they noticed him; and above them, lining each pocket of
shade above the path, lounged the older youths, interrupting their endless conversations to call out tirelessly as he passed,
‘Hey, mon ami! Amigo! Hashish? Hey! My friend – good
hash! Very cheap. Si? Hey, venez ici! Sit here. Yes? Hey!’
And always one or two standing and following until he reached the next strip of shade and the next gathering, the reek of
kif
heavy in the hot air again, and in every brittle tree and bush the invisible cicadas screaming as if on fire, and then a new volley of offers, and another stranger stalking behind him,
dropping away only when the path twisted out of the shadows and into the painful glare of the sun, leaving him to the next link of shade and waiting smokers in the long, watchful, murmuring human
chain. It was exhausting and he had chosen the shorter, steeper climb as soon as he’d noticed it, though it took him away from the river where he’d been able to drench his burning face
and neck. His bottled water was already running low, but he could pace his drinking more carefully now that he was alone at last. He’d had to drink wastefully as he walked the gauntlet of the
local youths, sucking from the bottle when they called out so that he’d seem preoccupied and purposeful. It was the same in the souks and markets of the medinas. In Tangier, Marrakech, Fez,
and now here: always the bottle ready to seal his mouth, though he knew it was probably exactly that which singled him out as a tourist and brought him the attention he was warding himself
against.

He stopped, wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the linen sleeve of his shirt and for the first time noticed properly the scattered, whitewashed graves surrounding him. They were almost
identical: just narrow troughs of stone, around four feet in length. Even the largest were shorter and narrower than any adult coffin. The newest were dazzling under the late morning sun. At their
ends they were stepped or arched, sculpted very simply and set low to the ground, many of them nearly hidden by the clumps of parched, wiry mountain grass that lay matted in between. A few carried
short Arabic inscriptions but most were plain and there were no flowers, nor any other kind of offering, just pale gravel or more of the tough hillside grass inside the shallow walls of each
rectangle. He wondered idly how deep the graves could be dug in the rocky soil. It looked unpromising: knuckles of grey Rif limestone jutted through the grass in every part of the burying ground.
The clean, wordless graves were pleasing, though. Blank headstone after blank headstone, blocky and white, as if the blazing sun had bleached even their meanings away.

But Christ, it was hot. Too hot to linger in the open. The high sun seemed focused to a single, burning cone on the crown of his head and the glare and repetition of the white graves was making
him dizzy. Just a few hundred yards further on, at the highest boundary of the graveyard, a skirt of trees fringed the last steep rise before the chapel. He could make for their shade or turn back
and face the hustlers again at the river. With his left hand shielding the top of his head, he squinted up at the ruin and started to climb again.

The hunched figure sharing the shade of the trees, a little way above him and to his right, was silent, though the boy knew he was being watched as he dried the streams of
sweat on his face, took a little water and recovered his breath. Behind them both, from the ruin, drifted the sound of cheerful Spanish voices. Eventually, two young couples carrying small, bulging
day-packs on their backs came picking their way down a stony path between the shrubs and olive trees. The figure in the shade called out to them familiarly in Spanish and the two boys answered with
laughs and a few fragments of conversation. It seemed to be the continuation of an earlier exchange, the English boy thought, though he could understand none of it except the
adios
the
figure finally called out as they vanished into the scrub. Other than the endless background sawing of the crickets and cicadas there was silence for a while, then the sound of a match being
struck. As if on cue, the stranger called over to him:
Amigo. Español?

He turned and shook his head, examining the other man for the first time. No, he called back. The stranger was small and wiry, clearly a local. Older than the youths at the river, the boy
decided - his scant goatee beard had streaks of grey in it, though the rest of his face was youthfully smooth and sharp-boned. He was staring again now, knees drawn up almost to his T-shirted
chest, and smoking a black wooden sebsi. The smell of the struck match rolled by the boy, then the aroma of
kif
.

English? Yes?

The boy nodded.

The stranger grunted and puffed on the short pipe.

The boy turned away, ignoring the rattle of pebbles behind him as the Moroccan rose to his feet and made his way to the boy’s side, settling himself on a smooth stone close by.

From London?

No. A smaller place. Nottingham.

Ah! Nottingham Forest. Brian Clough!

Despite himself the boy laughed. You’ve heard of him?

The stranger grinned toothily. All great coaches famous in Maroc!

The boy shook his head, still smiling. Dead now, he said.

Yes. You have smoke?

No thanks. I’m fine. He toyed with the cap of the bottle but resisted the impulse to open it and drink. The water was warm through the plastic and his fingers were slippery with sweat.

No smoke?

No. No smoke. I’m here to see the mountains.

Good. Very good. Many fine mountains here in the Rif. He cleared his throat. My name – Ibrahim, he announced abruptly, and reached over to offer his right hand.

The boy hesitated, then shook it. It was slender but the grip was strong. Hello, he said flatly.

For smoking I ask just once, said Ibrahim. In town, they say hash, hash, hash, yes? Always the hash. Me, I ask once.

Okay, the boy said. All around them the cicadas were deafening: an endless, grating chirr. It set the boy’s nerves on edge the way a baby crying always did when he was a child.

Very hot, yes? Ibrahim went on. Rest before more walking.

Very hot, the boy agreed. Too hot.

Yes. Even for August. Very hot.

They fell silent for a while. A calm, watchful immobility seemed to settle on the stranger’s face whenever he stopped speaking. It gave him a detached, superior air.

You live in town? the boy asked at last, uncomfortable with the silence. Without speech as a distraction, the cicadas’ uproar was maddening.

In Chouen, no. My village – that way. Ibrahim pointed with the stem of his sebsi towards the broad stony valley running east from the town and the chapel. Sometimes I stay in Chouen, he
added, and shrugged. You travel far in Maroc?

The boy nodded. I was in Tangier to start, then Fez and Marrakech, then headed back north. I was hoping it would be cooler in the mountains.

Ibrahim listened with a tilted head, as if straining to catch the words. He paused for a moment after the boy had finished speaking, then straightened his neck and grunted. Marrakech – too
hot, he said. In Marrakech now, fifty-five degrees, maybe more. Centigrade, he added. Very bad. Better here. But today, not so good. Very hot in Chouen, too. He took several quick puffs on his
pipe. Then, as if suddenly struck by the idea: I show you the mountains, yes? Show you the spring – cold water. Very clean. Good to drink. I know all the ways in the mountains. Good places
for photographs. Very high up.

A wave of weariness and irritation ran through the boy but he fought to keep it from his voice. I don’t know. I was planning on that anyway, you know? Walking in the mountains. You
understand? I was going there anyway.

Of course, of course, said Ibrahim, smiling.

Well, okay, the boy finished lamely.

Of course. Ibrahim tapped the debris from his pipe. You see my village too, yes? I show you the farms where they make the
kif
and the hash. Tourists not permitted, but I take you.

The boy yawned helplessly. It was suffocatingly hot, even out of the sun, and being hustled always made him feel strangely drained. Ever since arriving in the country and breaking with his
girlfriend who had taken an early flight home, he had become more and more aware of a weakness in himself, like a painless but sapping wound that each hustle opened up afresh; now, sensing it
opening again he felt a wave of despair. He closed his eyes, remembering his first night in Tangier. Within minutes of strolling onto the palm-lined Corniche he’d been cajoled by two guides
into buying his evening meal at an empty beach restaurant where they’d promised he could find cold beer. They’d plied him with fresh sardines, American beer and pipes of
kif
until well past midnight, then pretended to collect the bill from inside the bar before presenting him with a crudely scribbled note in Arabic demanding more money than he’d set aside for a
week’s accommodation. When he’d tried to reason with them they’d called the big, taciturn waiter to the table and the boy had understood, suddenly fearful, that all three of them
were in on the scam. The most bewildering part of it though was that once he had paid, defeated and furious, the two guides had acted as if nothing untoward had happened. They’d insisted on
escorting him back to his hotel, making friendly, broken conversation and the younger one had been completely at ease jostling at his shoulder, even showing off the creased scraps of paper,
scrawled with names and addresses of various foreign girls, that he kept stuffed in a bulging nylon wallet. As they’d approached his hotel a café-owner, watching the late night
stragglers along the Corniche from his doorway, had called a greeting in Arabic to the guides and the older hustler had answered in English, calling back over his shoulder with a barked laugh:
ai, like a hambourger!

Afterwards, in his hotel bed, he’d lain awake, humiliated, for most of the airless night and every shout and commotion in the back street below his window seemed to be the raised,
impatient voices of his guides, waiting for him to slot neatly between them again in the morning. He had learned his one word of Arabic that evening, at the older guide’s insistence:
Shukran
. Thank you.
Shukran
.

Since then he’d used silence more or less successfully in navigating the streets and souks of each city. In Marrakech he’d even found a source of hash without having to deal with the
local sellers: a ravaged, middle-aged Frenchman called Pierre who seemed to be living year-round all alone on the shared balcony of a cheap hostel.

Still, he thought, conscious again of Ibrahim stirring beside him and relighting his sebsi, what was happening now wasn’t so much a hustle as a kind of bargaining. If he wanted, he could
simply fix a small price for a hike in the mountains. It would be just a hundred dirham, maybe, for the whole afternoon – easily affordable and probably worthwhile, especially if he got to
see the huts where they processed the local hash. Pierre had told him that in the huts, when they beat the resin out of the plants, you could get high for free by breathing the thick golden dust
that hung in the air. Yawning again, he fought the impulse to drop his head to his chest, sensing Ibrahim’s watchful eyes on him.

Is it dangerous? he asked abruptly.

Alone, yes, of course. Alone, not permitted. But with me – not dangerous.

For a short while the boy considered the offer, but underneath his curiosity the prospect of Ibrahim’s company all afternoon, of any company in fact, repulsed him. Just the effort of
listening seemed to chafe at his brain.
Centougrade, Augoust, of coorse, pourmitted
.
Like a hambourger,
he recalled again, and felt the sweat come fresh to his face and scalp. He
waited grimly for the bitterness to pass, listening to his tormentor puffing patiently at his
kif
. Well, this Ibrahim could go with him into the mountains if he wanted. It wasn’t his
problem if he expected to be paid at the end of it. It would be useful to get fresh water at the spring, and if some local bum insisted on keeping him company – fine. They needn’t speak
to each other. He hadn’t hired him and he wouldn’t pay, even if he had to give him the slip somehow. It was a strangely satisfying thought in fact and a new liveliness, a feeling of
strength and self-righteous resolve, lifted the boy to his feet.

A good rest, said the voice at his side, as if to praise him. Ibrahim rose also and began immediately to climb the slope ahead of him, quick and sure-footed. Come. See the chapel, he called
back. Very old. Many visitors.

The boy followed him slowly, up through the trees and out into the glare of the hilltop.

The ruin was roofless and in the main cavity of the building the remains of its white stone walls seemed to magnify the sun’s heat from all sides. It’s like a furnace in here, the
boy said, more to himself than to Ibrahim. On his exposed forearms, pin-heads of white blisters were rising and prickling even as he watched, and when he rubbed them they flattened into smears of
clear liquid. The boy looked around him. How old is this place?

Very old. Very old, said Ibrahim solemnly. First Mosque, centouries ago, then Spanish –
Católico
– then Mosque again, then ruin. See – the crosses. They are
broken to make Mosque again. He pointed to one of the small, deep-set windows above their heads. It was clear that the arch had been bricked in at some point to form a cross, but at some later date
again knocked through leaving just the extremities of the arms. Framed by the oddly shaped opening the hard, bright blue sky glittered like a gem.